The Music Lovers
by therosenpants
Summary: Christophe Daae is slowly rising to the top after the death of his father. Is it the Vicomtesse de Chagny as his patron, or is it his mysterious tutor and muse Erik, the Phantom, who is to blame for his rise and fall? — A Queer, Genderbent Retelling of POTO. Updates Sundays.
1. The Journey Home

_A tall man in black with a hand in his pocket stood facing away from him. It was inexplicable the strength with which he_ knew _this man, though his face was hidden and his neck was the color of lavender._

 _He walked closer to the man, narrowing his gaze until some bits of it were blurry, and he could more easily make out the dirty door beyond the black-clad shoulder. It was a red door, once. Now it was the color of sin. And the blackness of that shoulder he gazed over began to radiate waves of lines, as though two photographs of the same scene were being flashed in rapid succession. A miraculously real and dangerously alluring zoetrope._

 _And a humming created from that vibration, a humming tune that belonged to him. To them… Was the man in black turning? Could he make out the curve… of a beloved cheek?_

 _The sky was sparkling. Something had been ignited and lights were raining down over them like a million gold coins. They scattered over those broad shoulders, and illuminated the hair. His own hand parted the waterfall of sparks, as if to reach out and touch what might be…_

 _And the humming… Stopping and starting, like a song for two with only one to remember how it goes._

* * *

Christophe slept with his chin tucked into the palm of his hand. His glasses, perched on the top of his head, were threatening to take a dive down the length of his nose if he snored one more time. His lashes fluttered with the roll of his eyes underneath the lids, and his lips seemed to move with discombobulated silence. And the shafts of light illuminated the blondest strands in his tawny hair, as well as the little fingernail which wrapped itself into a single one of his curls.

"Claudette, leave that man alone!"

That next snore broke loose, his elbow slipped upon the valise in his lap, and his glasses clattered to the floor. His eyes flew open and he blinked instinctively. After being in that soft and heavy state of sleep it took several moments to focus on the tiny child crossing her eyes mere inches from his face.

But her arm was knocked by a wood-bound book with marble papering. The sound lifted his shoulders to an alert, and the girl rolled back on her heels and landed on the seat opposite him in the train car with a tempered huff. He looked from her cherub cheeks to the mother, a plain woman averting her eyes.

"Please forgive her… She is near-sighted and likes to look at people quite closely."

Christophe smiled fondly at the little girl, who now sat with crossed arms and bitten lips. "I am nearsighted too," he replied softly, leaning forward and rubbing his nose. He absently fingered his dark blond locks, expecting to find wireframes there at the same moment he saw them shifting back and forth on the ground from the rhythm of the train. He bent down over the valise and instrument case in his lap, but the little girl snatched them up first.

"Claudette!" her mother started, but Christophe gave a wave of his hand.

"That's alright," he said, then to the girl, "You can try them on, miss Claudette."

They were too wide for her face, but she settled them on the bridge of her nose just the same and regarded him through the lenses. Curiously, it was only a moment before she took them off and folded them in her lap, and rubbed at the gold-plated frames with her thumbs.

"Why do you sound so funny? Like a bird is stuck in your throat!"

Her mother growled, but again Christophe replied warmly, "I am Swedish. Would you like something from my home country?"

She relaxed a little but picked up kicking her heels. She also gave a rather serious nod of the head.

Christophe spent a good few seconds locked with her small eyes, then unclasped the top of his valise. Reaching inside, he shifted through the three books he'd brought with him (that he finished on the first journey), his dark red scarf, his journal, his changes of clothes, his green cap, and his father's papers. His hand paused over the unfinished manuscript before he found his coin purse. Fishing two fingers inside, he pulled out a few of the coins and shifted them with his fingers. He plucked the silver five _kronor_ and replaced the rest of the _sous_.

"Here," he held the coin between his thumb and forefinger and extended his other hand. "I'll trade you this for my glasses?"

Claudette sat forward and studied Oscar II's likeness on the face side of the silver, then blindly rested his glasses in his outstretched grasp. He pressed the currency into her palm just as the train was rolling to a stop. The conductor was calling from the corridor the name of the station, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the girl's mother shifting to a standing position.

"Keep this under your pillow" he leaned forward whispering, "and the Korrigans will visit you while you sleep."

"Who are they?" she gasped quietly, holding the coin with both hands as though it was a great secret.

"They are little fairies who dance in your hair and bring you dreams of the sea."

Her eyes got even wider then. The mother's plaid shawl grazed her cheek, and instinctively she reached up to take her hand. Claudette gripped the coin tightly to her chest and smiled at him.

Christophe attempted to stand, but his legs, strained so much from the long journey, locked up and he grimaced.

"Thank you," the mother said with a hand clutched to her buttoned collar. Just as she was leaving and Christophe was about to respond, he noticed her half kindly and half pitying face gazing at his left arm as she said, "I am sorry for your loss."

He was momentarily stunned because he couldn't remember any loss. But then, why was he here in the first place? Why had he spent money needlessly on two train trips, two boats to and from Sweden, and fare on a cart that carried him to that little Uppsalan village he thought he'd never see again?

The black band on his arm was like a mental tourniquet. He should be polite and thank her. Christophe opened his lips, but no sound came out. It was just as well, though, for they were already gone.

He dug his fingers frantically into his coat pocket and pulled out the gold watch, flicking it open and finding the time, and more melancholy things. It was still half an hour until the train reached Paris. Christophe's gaze returned to the window to watch the passengers on the platform, and he let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Somebody new entered the compartment, and he compressed himself tighter to the body of the train until his curls were flattened by the glass. He palmed the black band and tried to sink back into the abyss of his dreams.

But it was not to be done. He was awake now and was so helpless to his feelings that the heaviness returned without the comfort of sleep.

The train picked back up in about fifteen minutes time, but Christophe's eyes were fixed on the same spot even as they rolled away from the station. It was on a face still so clear to him he might have seen it smiling at him only that morning. But faces of loved ones don't float alongside a train car, and they don't prepare one to face the realities of home.

His fingers, still holding onto his folded spectacles, caressed the side of the violin case adjunct to his knees. His face was frozen and his throat was hollow.

But a large bird, perhaps a hawk, swooped down by his window and flapped its great wings mere inches from his face beyond the glass.

It startled him and he blinked rapidly. It had certainly unmoored his fixed thoughts. Busy… Perhaps he should keep himself busy. He returned his glasses to his golden hair and tucked them tightly lest they slip again, and entered his valise once more. He settled his journal against his re-clasped case and pulled his pen from his breast pocket.

On Christophe's left middle finger, there was a great small nub of flesh at the rightmost tip of his first knuckle*. He rested the pen against this familiar callous and flipped open the notebook to last he left off.

 _Thirty minutes or so until we reach Paris. I believe I was dreaming about you not long ago, but I can't be certain. I'm starting not to remember what your hair looked like. I am sorry._

He sighed, his pen pressed snuggly against the page. When he pulled it away the period was a dark black spot too large for his handwriting. He broke to the next line.

 _There was a little girl named Claudette who just got off at Beauvais. I gave her my last kronor. I don't want anything more of this awful visit to my homeland on my person apart from what was left to me. A few papers, including all our birth certificates (and some death…), an unfinished manuscript he was slaving over at the end, I'm told… And the violin._

 _There was no money. I didn't expect there to be. All he had was put toward the funeral, and my cousin Agatha took what was left as compensation for housing him through his illness. I could not say a negative word against that woman. She is a far better relative than I._

 _I looked over the manuscript at the outset of my voyage home. It's tonally incomprehensible and the melodies are derivative. Mostly of folk songs we used to sing with my mother, but I don't think he had a right to entangle them together so much. I don't know what he was trying to do. I'm told he had been forgetting things at the end._

 _Agatha gave me a lock of his hair as a memento. It was completely white if you can believe it. I'm thinking about burning it. What would you recommend?_

 _…_

 _Don't be daft, Antoine, I'm not saying I hated him… Can you really say you hated him? We all feel alone in the end… I left him alone… I couldn't leave you alone._

 _I see Paris in the distance. The Seine is stretching out before me. When we first arrived in this city, I believed in my purpose as his son, as his musical protegé. The city sang to me, as it does now. Only then it was a glittering madrigal._

 _Now it is a funeral march._

 _I want to silence it, as it silenced you._

 _Yours,_

 _Kristoffer_

* * *

Thank you for reading the first chapter of my genderbent AU! Please review and share if you liked it!

-Rose


	2. Gilt Edges

_AN 7/29/18: This chapter has been edited for new content to clear future plot points up. Re-read at your leisure so future chapters make sense!_

* * *

She woke up to a screaming bell.

The noise was briefly paralyzing. It seized her chest with an iron grip before she unlocked her stiff joints and looked out at the approaching crowd. The dense smoke of the train engine was engulfing the sunlight filtering through the glass panels above them as they pulled into the station, and Marinne suddenly felt both indescribable terror and anticipation at the same time.

It was unexplainable, as she'd made this journey into _le Gare du Nord_ many times before.

She could only attribute it to the content of her dreams halting so abruptly due to the sound of the train whistle. Her dream… A Korrigan dream… She'd felt the spray of the sea against her cheeks, felt the tumble of the waves as she reached out… to somebody… The blasted whistle prevented her from seeing who it was!

… Or perhaps it was because the brother she'd been leaning against had stood without gently nudging her awake like he ought to have. She found herself with palms splayed across his still warm seat next to her, blinking away sleep-tears and her heavy skin. Marinne gave him a confused and accusatory look.

"I suppose I should have woken you when I spotted Paris," Maurice said as he was pulling on his coat. "But you were snoring so joyfully that it would have been a shame to interrupt."

She rubbed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at once, already cracking her joints in dismay. "Ugh… When _you_ have a tiny nose, _Monsieur le Vicomte_ , let me know how easy it is for _you_ to sleep without making noise!"

He grunted in disapproval at that moniker, but it was only natural that she should make fun of him in turn! He'd only been back in her presence three days and already the teasing was as bad as when they were children.

"You haven't had to share a bed with him, dear sister," another, lighter voice piped up from behind. Felix's fair, smooth hair appeared adjacent to his taller brother's dark locks, and his crisp, pressed day suit was such a stark contrast to the dishevelment of Maurice. "He's quite the talker if you ask me. Did you happen to have a little strumpet named 'Andrea'," he nudged the back of his brother's neck with bent fingers, causing him to twist in embarrassment, "hanging around you in Berlin, by _cha-ance_?"

And in return, Maurice rounded on him with a headlock. "Most _inappropriate_ , Vicomte! What would brother say?"

Marinne pursed her lip with a roll of her eye, smoothing down the front of her dress. "If you're going to get us all in trouble let me know so I can prepare myself."

The brothers disengaged but continued to stare each other down as Marinne began to stand. "Where is Philippe, anyway?" she said with a shake of her still sleep-gripped head, wobbling slightly. Felix was there to steady her shoulders.

"Complaining to the conductor about what happened in the dining car, no doubt," he said with a smooth of his thin mustache. Then, to his brother, "Maurice! Let my valet handle those bags!"

Said brother had already brought down Marinne's hatbox, unlatched now and from which she removed her straw hat. "Oh no, you're not turning me into a simpering noble again just because I'm home." He tugged and tugged at the largest bag, but it only budged slightly. He grunted through his words as he pulled harder. " _I will take... these bags... and I will carry them... all the way... to the chateau if I have to!"_

He huffed and he puffed, and the bag took him down with it.

Both of his siblings began to snicker at their brother's expense. They leaned against each other as the laughter grew, and their brother's face darkened. Marinne had to cover her mouth with her hand lest she improperly snort into Felix's lapel.

"Oh yes, laugh all you want. Make me feel _worse_! You are wonderful siblings, really."

He wasn't quite as sarcastic as his words made out. Felix lent down to help him up, but he shrugged off his fairer sibling's hand and gripped the plush of the bench, cracking his back on the way up. For emphasis, he lifted the bag several times to prove he could carry it with no trouble.

Felix waved his hand in dismissal. "While you prove your worth as our newest _servant \_ , I am going to see what is taking Philippe so long." He kissed Marinne's forehead just before she pinned her little straw hat to her fawn-colored hair. "Meet us at the luggage car, _both_ of you." He clapped Maurice on the shoulder and leaned in, briefly glancing at Marinne to suggest she look away.

She did so as she pulled on her light gray gloves, as a lady properly should. But her ears were wide and keen .

"Listen to me, Maurice…" he whispered. "If he catches you slipping away to Montmartre, he will make you regret it. Do you understand?"

Marinne blinked and her cheeks inflamed, but she said nothing as Felix left the cabin.

She glanced at her brother. Maurice had grown still, facing away from her and breathing rather irregularly. His expression was mostly obscured by his dark hair falling in his face. He sighed.

Swallowing the tension in her chest, she glided over to him and touched his arm gently. "Shall I take one of the bags, Maurie? I think I could handle it."

He turned completely and smiled softly, the dimple in his chin creasing in that way she loved. "No, no. There's only two. But… perhaps you could take your hatbox, at the least?"

Grinning and dimpling her own cheeks, she bent and closed the hat box and took it up. She also gathered her reticule and book with little gilt edges and stood at attention. Maurice brought down the other bag.

"Ready to go home?" she said.

He took a breath and nodded. "Ready."

Marinne tucked her gloved hand in the crook of Maurice's arm as they stepped into the hall. They followed the traffic of the other travellers and finally found themselves on the Gare du Nord platform.

The steam from the engine had finally dispersed and she could see the sunlight as it showered over various travelers. Young and old, families and couples, rich and poor congregated on the platform. They did not necessarily speak to one another, but the same general emotions pervaded throughout the space: a welcoming home, a fond farewell, or a searching gaze for familiar faces.

She glanced up from the brim of her straw hat at the jawline of her brother. Maurice was a bit of a mess, actually. He wore no tie or cravat and his shirt was loose at the collar, and his waistcoat was dirty and in need of a good ironing. He wore his recent stubble with roguish flair, and his hair had been too unkempt for Felix's liking, so he'd lent him a bottle of pomade before they'd left Germany. This he'd used up almost completely to no effect, or so he chatted to her as they strolled down to the luggage car where their older brothers waited for them. His wavy, nearly curled locks were impossible to keep tamed, and she was glad to see a section hanging over his strong brow and cheeks. It felt like he was the Maurice of her childhood.

But it had still been many years since she'd last seen him, and he'd remarked almost too harshly when they'd reunited in Berlin on the change in her face, in the shape of her bodice. Though it was teasing, and out of his three siblings Marinne had his bleeding, bohemian heart, she still could not shake the distance with which they'd accustomed each other.

The hum of the crowd guided them down to their destination. Her heels clicked the stone of the pavement in a passionate rhythm. She laughed with her brother's gaiety, encouraging him to be comfortable with coming home.

"Really though, Marina… What have you been up to these three years?" Maurice stopped briefly to take her little hand very seriously.

She had to pause herself, lowering her head and staring at a missed buttonhole on his waistcoat intently. "Philippe has been showing me off after my debut. I suppose he wants to find me a good match, but I feel as if we are getting nowhere." Briefly glancing up at him, she took back her hand and closed up the hole, taking the edges of the waistcoat and tugging it down so it was smoothed out. "Dinner party after benefit after gala I'm told to put on a beautiful gown and be agreeable, but as much as our brother draws attention to me their interest always seems to fall elsewhere, almost immediately at that."

"That's patently ridiculous," he suggested, digging his hands into his pockets pulling out a silver cigarette case. He sent a rolled stick to his lips and lit it with a little match encased opposite the tobacco. "You're the most interesting person I know. What happened to your swim record?"

"I haven't been to the sea since we were children, Maurie." Marinne raised an eyebrow at her brother's smoking, and in front of her too! She was not going to say anything, however, lest he felt he could not trust his only confidant. She smiled sadly, her cheeks forming the smallest dimples. "I'm not as fun as I used to be, I'm afraid."

"If Philippe hasn't ' _found you a match'_ yet," he said mockingly with an eye roll, "then I'm positive there is no one who could be good enough for my sister." He steeled her eyes and pointed his cigarette accusingly toward the luggage car. "It is not your fault. Trust me. Not many men can handle the strength of a woman such as yourself."

Marinne was struck by the sincerity of her brother's statement. And if she knew him at all, it would be the last of it for some time as he reached his quota for being humble, so she shook her despondency and her head, and laughed (though she knew in her heart that he must be wrong).

"You know, perhaps you're right…" She stepped backwards in the luggage car's direction and stretched her arms, hatbox swaying joyfully left and right. "I am as boundless as the ocean, and no man can contain me!"

And her back hit a wall.

Or rather, the hardness of another's flesh.

" _Oh! Excuse-moi!"_

" _Jag… Jag är ledsen!"_

She dropped her book with gilt edges, and felt a bag also clatter to her feet. She bent down instinctively, reaching for what she thought was the book but was instead the open valise of what was clearly a working class individual. It was brown and worn away in places, and the brass clasps were nearly black with age. Spilling out from the opening was a dark red mass of fabric that was so utterly familiar to her that it was jarring.

She touched the scarf with her gloved fingertips, raking them over the pattern forming a "C" at the end and fondling the tassels.

"Christophe…" she whispered.

" _Ja?"_

She lifted her head abruptly, her few sausage curls bouncing against her chest and the pounding heart beneath it.

The sunlight which came down upon him lit his unruly hair various shades of gold. A smooth, classical face that had grown into a masculine jaw and strong cheekbones. Still too large ears which he never grew into from his youth. Round, gold-rimmed glasses which rested on his straight nose, pushed down to the tip as he looked over them into her face. And eyes of blue, of ocean blue, of lapis lazuli, of forget-me-nots…

There was not a day that had passed in the years since they parted that she had not thought of those eyes.

" _Min Gud! Rina!"_

Only seconds had elapsed as they'd regarded each other, and he too had slowly recognized her. Marinne stood quickly now and covered her mouth. "Christophe? Christophe! It really _is_ you!"

He nodded with his grin, hair bouncing and skin flushing. Tears stung her eyes as she felt his arms encircle her waist. The embrace was tight, but brief, as he stepped away with newly reddened cheeks and avoidant eyes. She held onto his sleeves, unwilling to relinquish the certainty that he was real and standing before her.

"You finally have glasses!" she exclaimed, touching the side of his frames lightly.

Christophe softly laughed, his eyes crinkling. "Yes…" he responded in French, though his accent was heavier than she remembered. "Though I'm afraid I can't see the Korrigans anymore. They don't appreciate being looked at too closely!"

Marinne — no, Christophe's _Rina_ , a name for herself she'd forgotten she loved — simply radiated the happiness which he'd restored to her.

"Care to introduce this handsome devil, _Marina_?"

Rina palmed her own cheek, feeling her flush and embarrassment when she remembered they weren't alone. Maurice had discarded his cigarette and seemed to grow even taller. Taking a single step away from Christophe, she smoothed her skirt and cleared her throat. Looking back to her friend, he too had straightened his casual posture, but he held onto his polite smile.

"O-oh, Maurie… This is my dear friend, Christophe Daaé. We spent the first summer you were away at school together in Perros…" For the first time since they bumped into each other, her eyes broke away from his face to regard the rest of his person, and suddenly all she could see was the black arm band encircling his left bicep. Her thoughts trailed away, but she returned to his face when he cleared his throat. His eyes were sadder, and she regretted her perusal. "Euh… C-Christophe, this is the youngest of my older brothers, Maurice."

They linked hands customarily and nodded. "Charming," Maurice said, though for some reason unbeknownst to her Christophe puzzled his eyebrows at this. "Is this the boy you used to wander all over the beach with in nothing but your drawers, Marina?"

Rina swatted her brother's arm, which broke him into a sly grin. "That is not funny! I was a child, you twit!"

"Still, Aunt Elise paints a pretty picture of it at Christmas time!"

He gripped his belly in his laughter, and Rina bore into him with a hateful glare.

"Please, Christophe," she said to the other, more reserved man. "Don't mind him too much. He's always like this."

"I'll think nothing of it, if that's what you wish."

His amused expression eased some of her worries. She clasped her hands at her waist, fingering the handle of her hatbox most nervously. "I suppose… I mean… I should give you my condolences, shouldn't I?"

She cast her eyes downward, wishing not to see how his eyes changed color and his jaw clenched and shifted the muscles in his cheeks.

"Thank you, Rina… I-I mean… should I, I don't want to be… Mademoiselle de Chagny, that is-"

"No please, continue to call me Rina, I insist—"

"She insists, Monsieur Daaé!"

Rina managed to insert herself between the two men and step on her brother's foot at the same time (he gave a light yelp but said nothing further incriminating). Clearing her throat, she began again.

"Is it your father?"

When he nodded grimly she reached out to take his hands, but he merely replaced them with her gilt-edged book and bent down, clasping his valise and taking it back up. "He died abroad… I mean, at home, in Sweden. I was not able to attend the funeral, unfortunately."

"Christophe, I am so sorry."

A shuffling was heard behind her. When she looked back Maurice was stone-faced as well, and she thought perhaps his time in Berlin made his quota much larger than it was before. He muttered his own earnest condolences, too.

"It's alright," Christophe said, adjusting his glasses. "I'm sure he would have liked to know that we met each other again."

Her original tears changed in their texture, and now she held onto the memory of the kindly Lars Daaé, who told her stories and played the very violin now in Christophe's possession. The one who gave her fatherly advice and a treated her as a person in the seaside paradise where she could roam freely. But mostly she was crying for Christophe, who barely looked at her now and who she suddenly saw as missing a piece of himself she could not define.

Eyes glazed with tears caressed his form. She caught sight of his hand pressing the violin against his leg, and she reached forward to touch the case. "How he loved this instrument. And you."

Her smile was an offering of comfort. His own was small, imperceptible except to Rina, who'd been trained to sort out her friend's complex emotional landscape over an entire summer of rollicking joy. It was understandable, she thought now, that such a boy would grow to be such a sad-eyed man. His mother gone, no friend his own age, and living in a foreign country out of necessity rather than desire had always made themselves known in his strangely lyrical voice. A voice she remembered so clearly she could feel it hitting her skin, in fresh waves of longing.

"Can you play it?"

It was her brother who spoke, leaning in over her shoulder with interest. Bristling, it took a moment to realize he was talking about the violin. She raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"A-a little," Christophe admitted, a blush twinging his cheeks. "I'm afraid with it being in my father's possession until he died that I'm sorely out of practice."

"Though your voice is still wonderful, isn't it Christophe?" said an excited Rina. But his body tightened at this, the notch in his throat jiggering up and down. Perplexed, she continued, "My fondest memories of that summer by the sea where when you joined your father as he played. I'll never forget them."

Christophe switched the violin to his other hand, now carrying both valise and instrument in his left. He took his free hand and wiped the back of his neck, still unable to look at her but musing wistfully, "But you _have_ forgotten that I sounded like a choir boy even at fifteen. I was really no good."

Unthinkable! How could he say such a thing about himself? She looked at Maurice with denial in her eyes. He's merely being humble, she wanted to say. But something in his posture and the way he'd recoiled, avoiding her gaze... What a change in him, she thought. Rina began to protest—

But "I must go," he continued, reaching behind her to shake her brother's hand once more. "I live with my father and I's benefactor, and she has been waiting for me to return."

With a nod of his head, he started to walk away.

How fast this was all occurring, without an ounce of her consent! Her breath seemed to be caught in a trap, and her tears would not leave her eyes, but began to sting. She was _not_ prepared to let him leave that easily! Not again, when she'd barely been able to console him properly! Or console herself!

"Christophe!" she impulsively followed, gripping his arm again and glancing nervously between he and her brother.

He dipped his handsome blue eyes to her line of sight and suddenly she was overtaken, without a thing to say or a plan ahead. "I…" she started, feeling the scarlet rise within her.

"Yes?"

"Er… Please… You... must come to our home tonight!"

She could almost feel her brother metaphorically hit the ground behind her. Rina looked briefly at him shaking his head and picked up her skirt with her boot, wiggling her heel a little as if to say "just go with it!"

"Excuse me?" Christophe said, thankfully moving closer. "What for?"

This was working! Quick, Rina… think… of something!

"Y-yes! We are having a… dinner, yes a dinner! To celebrate... _Maurice's…_ " She gripped her brother's arm and smacked herself against his side, threatening him to grin with a pinch in the crease of his elbow. He did smile, but it looked slovenly. "...return from Berlin!"

She swivelled her head from man to man. Maurice finally got the hint. "Ah… oh yes! Really, you should come and show off that 'wonderful voice' of yours. It will make my coming home party a hit!"

Oh, mercy… Party? That was not at all what she'd had in mind! But she hardly had time to muse over how best to kill her brother, as she had to close the deal. Before Christophe could protest, she exclaimed "Yes, please! Our sister-in-law can play piano modestly, and she'd be happy to accompany you."

Both young people were sincerely burgundy, all over their cheeks and necks. If anyone was amused by it it was probably Maurice, who she felt stifling laughter beside her.

"Really, I told you I am not—"

To silence Christophe she held out her little index finger as she opened her reticule and retrieved a small pencil, along with the only scrap of paper she possessed — her train ticket. On the back, she wrote her address and the time. At the end, she left a note to remind him of their childhood.

 _Your Little Lotte — R._

Before he could protest, she folded it into his hand. " _I insist._ "

Christophe creased his lips but squeezed her hand in his all the same. After a moment, and a catch of his breath she almost missed, he whispered "I will be there." Then, as his fingers curled underneath hers, one by one setting all her cylinders ablaze, he brought her hand up to his lips and pressed them against her gloved knuckles. Oh… how she wished those fingers were bare.

Her cheeks burned. No doubt his did too as his lips parted.

"Goodbye for now, Mademoiselle de Chagny."

She gripped her book with gilt edges as she watched him disappear into the crowd. The dingy brown valise was the last glimpse she caught of him.

"You said his name in your sleep."

She was startled back from her stupor, slipping her free hand over her coiffeur and straightening her hat. "What?"

They began to walk again, this time at a pace to appease their dismayed siblings' faces. "I'm not the only one who talks in their sleep in the family. On the train, you said his name two or three times. I believe you summoned that young man, you little witch!"

He meant it in a joking manner, but Rina — little Marinne, the youngest of the de Chagny children who'd had the mischief teased out of her with a fine-toothed comb — could only grimace at the revelation.

"Please, Maurie… We don't have time! We must find Felix and Philippe and… convince them to throw you a party."

The Vicomtesse practically melted into a puddle of embarrassment at the thought, and Maurice's rakish laughter guided them the rest of the way to the luggage car.

She knew he was right to laugh at her, for she'd acted foolishly. An abrupt, unwarranted invitation to a party that didn't exist might just be her undoing.

But Marinne de Chagny steeled herself for that upheaval in her life. She fixed her stars on a distant memory, and let that be her own personal guide. It was her Korrigan dream rushing back to her, as the babbling brook returns to the dry bed of sticks and leaves.

She'd been reaching out to a golden face, and a red scarf bleeding into the bluest of oceans.

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that seeing Raoul's new female name as "Marinne" wasn't too strange. As you can see I wanted to make her relationship to Christophe even stronger, and thus his nickname for her is what makes her even closer to our original Vicomte._

 _So, we've now been introduced to all of the major characters who have swapped genders: Christine, Raoul, and Raoul's sisters are now Christophe, Rina, Felix and Maurice. I'm a little nervous about all these original characters as I know the fandom isn't terribly fond of them, but I believe they will be essential to the plot of this fic, as it's not a straight retelling but more of an AU with retelling elements. If that makes sense._

 _Please review! I don't know if you guys are super into the fic if you just view it! even if it's to say "good job!" or "this could use a little work" that would be beneficial!_

 _-Rose_


	3. Monsieur Cendrillon

_FYI: The previous chapter was edited so that this chapter makes more sense. If you've already read chapter 2 before 7/29/18 please take another look at it! If not, carry on!_

* * *

Christophe didn't believe in fairytales anymore. And yet here one was, come to life as if from a storybook illustration — a tale of a princess reuniting with her pauper.

His face was exorbitantly hot as he made his way through Paris streets. His joints were stiff and his valise and violin case was clutched deathly tight in his hands. Only one thing was on his mind, and that was getting home before he ran back to the station to catch her and tell her he couldn't possibly intrude, no no he could never _perform_ for her family and friends. Before he admitted to his _only_ friend that he just _didn't_ … not anymore. Oh, forget the boy who you met by the sea, Rina…!

But for her… how could he not pretend, just for a little while, that his musical soul wasn't dearly departed? He could play-act like he used to, when they were children. It might be easier than he thought. After all, if he didn't faint the moment he clapped eyes on her, he could handle as much as singing _one_ song. Two, at the most. _For her._

But what _would_ he sing?

Nothing too strenuous. Nothing too serious. Keep it light, airy… like a mousse tartlet. Tartlet? That sounded delicious. Did he have change for a—Focus! Something simple for her sister-in-law to play. Which brother was married? Certainly not the one he'd met, seven-o'clock-shadow and unbuttoned shirt collar Maurice. Perhaps it was Philippe, who he'd always been intimidated by, even through stories… How could she offer up her sister-in-law to accompany _his_ voice? Even though she thought he was in fine form… Oh, but Rina, he wasn't fifteen anymore! His voice had changed. He wasn't even twenty, when last he'd had any kind of vocal training. Oh god, the very thought was rubbing his chords raw—

He yelped, stumbling back with a free hand clutching his heaving chest.

You see… He'd been walking… and walking… with no regard to his surroundings. To any onlooker, he probably resembled one of those wandering folks in the throes of a fugue. Perhaps if he'd been conscious of direction, or reacted remotely normal to Rina's invitation, he might have already been home and upstairs, hugging Maman and ringing for an early lunch from the kitchens.

Instead, he was on the cusp of a busy square and smacked himself in the face with the back of an imposingly cut figure — a dark, olive green coat over broad shoulders, with a tuft of coarse, straight black hair at the nape of the neck.

The impact had pushed the nubs of his glasses into his eyes and the stinging arose. He took them off and pinched the bridge of his nose and said: "Please, forgive me, I wasn't looking where I was going!"

Through his watery eyes, he watched the figure turn around, and a chill ran down his spine.

He first caught sight of his irises — greener and more vibrant than the coat, but in the same hue and softness. They were encased by darkly tinged lids with a few creases at the corners, enough to be mature and distinguished. He had full, dark brows that matched his hair, which was combed stylishly to the side with a single weft hanging straight on his temple. Near his ears, the hair was graying slightly, but he wore it well. Not a speck of facial hair was to be found across his wide and strong jaw apart from the small, carefully groomed mustache, as black as his hair and brows, but shining slightly from a gel or wax.

And atop his head, a cap made of short, dark gray fur in the style of a foreigner.

It felt like the color both drained and rushed Christophe's face at the same time. For the stare from those jade eyes had been piercing, and no response came from those full lips under his mustache. The man looked behind his shoulder in the direction of a far off building, but without his glasses Christophe could not see what it was.

The man regained himself and straightened. Christophe couldn't help but do the same, for he was inexplicably transfixed by the feeling that washed over him. The stranger reached to his head and lifted his cap. With a bow of his posture — as if in acceptance of the Swede's long forgotten apology — he swept to the side and disappeared into the crowd of the square.

Almost immediately the spell was broken, and Christophe restored his glasses to his face and tried to find the cap again in the crowd.

No such luck. His eyes at least found that building beyond the square that had captured the strange man's interest: Christophe was standing just inside _le Place de l'Opera_ , and up ahead was the Palais Garnier. The Paris Opera House.

He could not stop the breath catching in his throat. It was a sight which turned his features to longing, without his permission and with such a strong pull. He didn't know how he'd found himself here — their home was in the opposite direction going south — but nonetheless, he knew that Apollo, God of music, was looking down on him for a reason.

Christophe shook himself free of the fugue and turned home. He had some sheet music to look for, and acceptable attire.

* * *

He met the pension director on the stairwell. He recognized him immediately, for it was three years ago the same man had discussed Professor Valerius' stipend with his widow as Christophe looked on from the hall, his face still mussed from his tears.

"Good morning, monsieur," the man said to him, tipping his hat a little too hurriedly (for now Christophe had a handsome stranger's politeness to compare it to!), not waiting for a response. "I trust you will be fine."

"Good m...orning…" Christophe considered slowly, watching him exit their building and leaving him with ten pounds of confusion.

He looked up to their rooms, another floor up. The door was still slightly ajar, and he could hear it if he concentrated enough: her weeping.

His feet bounded up the stairs, loud and worried. "Maman!" he called out, flinging himself into the room with the force of an adopted son. He saw her at the card table, cane gripped in one hand and fretting over her tears with the other. Their maid Victoria was rubbing her shoulders when they saw him.

Maman gasped and stood, too fast perhaps as she wobbled forward on her cane. "Christophe! Oh my dear boy…"

He dropped his things at the door and rushed to catch her lest her knee give out. She cooed and petted his face, and he kissed both her cheeks in fierceness. "Maman, what has happened!? Why was the pension director in the hall?"

Adelaide Valerius swept her hand over her mouth and sobbed in her next breath. "He's come to tell me the school has closed… My husband's school, which has been so good to us… There'll be no more money, my dear."

Christophe looked behind her frantically, to see on the card table letters and documents, and what was likely the last of the pension stacked and wrapped in twine hanging out of an envelope. He could already see Victoria's face going blank, as she was slowly realizing she was about to be dismissed.

"No… this cannot be! They can't simply…"

"Oh yes, and they have," Maman said. She wrapped her arms around his frame and brought him close. "How glad I am that you've come back. I… I don't know what I'd do if—"

Christophe walked Adelaide to the parlour's sofa and set her down, kneeling in front and taking her soft, aging hands in his. "Don't worry, Maman… I'll… I'll do something about this. I'll go catch the director and talk to him… We can't be cut off so drastically, not really."

Maman shook her head, as if not really hearing him. She took a kerchief out of her bodice and wrung it against her eyes. Christophe noticed her hair was only half up, and she was still in her yellow wrapper; the man had come to bring her such awful news and hadn't waited for her to even be dressed properly! His face flooded with fury, but he kept it cool and calm as he smoothed the white, spindly strands coming down from Adelaide's forehead back over the coiffeur of her black hair, and then swept a loose black lock over her shoulder.

"Victoria?" he began, and he heard her halt behind him, as she'd been gathering her things.

"... Yes, monsieur?"

He looked behind him and stood. He still held onto his benefactor's hand. "Please take my mother back to her room and help her to bed."

"Oh, Christophe—"

"Maman, you must rest. I will look over those papers and—"

"No, no… Victoria! Go send for us lunch, and you will help me dress when you return. My son has just gotten back from visiting Sweden, and he will sit and tell me all about it!"

She swiped her fingers over eyes and gave pointed looks to both servant and foster son. Somehow the prospect of spending time in bed ( _again,_ after those _years_ after her accident) seemed to straighten her and restore her regal bearing, despite impending destitution. When she tugged on Christophe's hand, he sat without question.

" _Oui, madame,"_ Victoria whispered, and as she left Christophe noticed she took her things with her. He knew for certain she was not coming back, so he mentally planned the moment when he might slip away and find them something to eat in the icebox.

"Now," Adelaide began, patting his hand in hers with her other. "Was the journey quite long? You have been gone what feels like an eternity!"

Christophe spent the next hour alternating between begrudgingly discussing his father at far too much length and her squeezing him so tightly his eyes might divulge themselves from their sockets. It was easy to see why she wanted to avoid the subject at hand — the papers and the scant bills taunted him every time he turned his head, and Maman's eyes, too, flitted between him and the card table, as if to tell him she was too overwhelmed to even speak on the subject.

The clock in the hall chimed twelve, and suddenly the inside of Christophe's pocket burned. He slipped a hand inside and clutched the train ticket — not one from Calais where he'd been very early that morning, but from Berlin, and bearing a little French girl's sugary handwriting.

He touched his lips as Maman said, "You have got the most charming look in your eye, my child. I suppose you won't tell me _who_ it is?"

Christophe whipped his head to find Adelaide grinning, hands clasped over her knee and rocking too and fro with a mischievous look in her own eye. His blush was evident.

"How did you—"

"Ah… A mother can always tell. Even adopted ones!"

He cringed as she pinched his cheek, but still waved his hand. "It's nothing. I merely ran into an old friend at the station." Getting up, he went to the coat rack and finally shrugged off the jacket he'd been wearing since he arrived. It was suddenly evident he had forgotten everything in the moment he heard Maman's soft crying from the hall.

"Just an old friend! Well then, tell me about her, my little Romeo!" Adelaide crept up to her feet and caned herself over to the card table. She folded the open documents up and took them to the rolling top desk against the wall, shoving them in and swiftly slamming back the drawer.

Christophe paused, thumbing his valise and violin case in his hand as he paused on his way to his bedroom. She was joking, but he thought deeply about her words. "... How do you know it was a woman, Maman?"

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, a little grin creeping at her thin lips. "I didn't, but I do now!"

He rumbled his throat, as she clearly misunderstood his question. But he smiled nonetheless. "One moment," he said and stepped into his bedroom to deposit his things.

When he came back, Maman was nowhere to be seen. He looked for her in her bedroom, but it was empty also (he took reluctant stock of the portrait of the dead man sitting on her nightstand, spending a frivolous moment in turning it away from his gaze). Finally, in the kitchen, he heard her humming as she was lighting the stove.

"I have not done this in so long… Do you remember when your father would make us bowls of melted chocolate, even though we insisted he let our servant do it?"

He smiled softly, remembering the moments in question as hazily and dreamlike as Maman seemed to. "Yes… And the Professor's mustache would be soaked in chocolate when he guzzled it down... He loved sweets."

"Your father, too! Don't forget when Ladureé opened its doors that Lars was first in line!"

Their chuckles filled the emptiness so deftly that perhaps both men were lounging with cigars and brandy in the other room, while she and Christophe made themselves afternoon tea.

But it was just Maman who searched through cabinets and jars for the chamomile, a blend suited to calm their both shattered nerves.

"Oh, where is that Victoria! She knows where it is, why isn't she back yet?"

Christophe knew exactly where to look — many a late night he lay weeping in his bed, stealing away to the kitchen for the calming drink only when his eyes were so swollen they hurt to touch. There was a flowery tin on top of the icebox that held the leaves, and he took it down for her and opened it up. The smell hit their nostrils at the same time, and though Maman's face lit up he couldn't help but feel the sadness and worry etch itself deeper into both their frames.

"... My friend, Maman," Christophe started as she began to fill the little metal ball with the tea. "Is the Vicomtesse de Chagny."

Maman's eyes grew to moons as she dunked the tea into the boiling kettle. "My word… However did you meet her, Christophe?"

"The summer we were at Perros I played with a little girl. You met her once, if I remember correctly. She had straw-colored hair and red knobby knees." He took the tray from the pantry and set it on the counter by the stove, then took two teacups and saucers to set on top of it. He finished by gathering the sugar and cream into their dishes. "I used to sing to her while Papa played. She remembered it fondly."

"Oh," she moaned, stopping to wipe tears from her eyes. "How I miss your voice, Christophe."

He rolled his head to the side with a sigh, burying his cheek in his palm. "I know, Maman…"

"Couldn't you consider, even just once… For your dear mother?"

His hands ran from his cheek to his throat, and he gulped. "Actually… the Vicomtesse is having a... soireé of sorts tonight and invited me to sing. And I was considering going."

She'd been pouring the tea into the cups and dropped it to the stove with a clatter. Her face was stunned.

"My dear… you simply _must_ go!"

"Oh but Maman, I couldn't possibly, not now…"

She shooed away those words, taking his face in both her hands (which was impressive as she was a full head shorter than him, with a bad leg to boot!) and forcing him to look at her. "Young man, that beautiful voice of yours is laying to waste in your throat. The longer you wait, the more unlikely it is you'll sing again."

He fingered a tassel on her wrapper, avoiding her eyes. "Isn't that the point?"

She loosened her grip on his face but stroked his hair instead. "Your father would not want this of you. Even if he truly meant those harsh words — which I don't believe he did — your voice gave him so much joy. It reminded him of your real _maman_ , he would often tell me. And he will hear it again, in heaven now."

He would fight these tears… He would fight them even if it meant his heart had to crystallize in his very chest.

Christophe removed himself from her arms and took the tea kettle up, pouring it into both their cups. "That's as may be, but I cannot go now. I should be out looking for work!"

"Christophe…" Adelaide murmured, taking up her cane to lean on and tapping her foot.

He took the tray and moved past her to the parlour. "And I don't mind, really. As much as I love you, Maman, I have felt rather stuffy at home, reading the same books and learning how to knit!"

"Christophe…!"

"I could make deliveries… Or wait tables. The pay is good in the restaurants near the opera, I hear—"

" _Kristoffer Josef Daae."_

The little teacups _plinked_ when he set them on the card table, a bit too abruptly and too harshly. Some of the tea spilled into its saucer. He stood stiff-necked and cast-eyed, fists at his sides. "Yes, Maman?"

"You are going to that party. You are going to sing. And you are going to tell your mother all about it when you return home after midnight, _Monsieur Cendrillon_. Now help me into my bedroom and I will find you the Professor's old dinner jacket."

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed this chapter! What a grand entrance for our favorite Persian gentleman! Stay tuned next week for the dinner party... that literally no one was prepared for. lol_

 _As always, please read and review! REVIEW I say! Or Christophe shall never sing AGAIN!_

 _Actually, he'd like that. But don't listen to him, he doesn't know what he wants._

 _-Rose_


	4. Cœur de Parisienne

_A/N: I'm so sorry this chapter is a week late! It is a long one and my first several drafts just weren't working for me, so I took the time to make sure it was good enough for the story I want to tell. I hope you understand!_

 _Enjoy_!

* * *

The dinner jacket was far too large.

It hung over his shoulders and slumped down, and even buttoned he felt he could slide an entire roast beef under the material and none would be the wiser. At five feet and eight inches, Christophe's slender arms and legs could enhance his height when next to a petite woman, but nothing could be done for his narrow shoulders and shallow chest. In the broadness of the jacket and the length of the sleeves, he was reminded of how tall the Professor had been — six foot, long-necked and relaxed, this jacket would suit only an accomplished gentleman like him.

His eyes burned. Well… there was nothing to be done about it, for it was the only suitable coat he had.

And it wasn't really so bad if one did not look too closely. His black slacks matched the material of the jacket rather well, and he had a nice cream waistcoat which once belonged to his father. A scrubbed white shirt and bow-tie (also of the late Professor) rested under his chin most effectively. In the cheval mirror, he stood remarkably distinguished if one could overlook the ill-tailoring.

Of course, the mirror only went as far as just below his knees.

Nobody looked at shoes anymore, right?

He didn't have the energy to stress over how scuffed and unmoored the soles were becoming, nor the fraying of the laces. What mattered was they were black, and could get him where he was going. _Hopefully_.

Christophe gave one last pass over his slicked hair — oh he doubted the curls would last the night tucked in, but at least his widow's peak was visible for now — and he was finished with his dressing rituals. He turned from the mirror and sighed. The room was a mess as his unpacking was deferred to prepare for the party, but the sight of his father's papers upon the bed reminded him that an article was missing from his costume. One that he'd neglected on _purpose_.

He went to his nightstand and figured the black strip of cloth. It would be less noticeable upon the black jacket, yet he was loathe to invite the revelers' prying when it could be avoided.

But it was proper. It was his duty. The fabric crumpled in his hands when he brought it to his face, smothering his nostrils and releasing hot air into his palms. For a moment he was content with wearing it, even composing himself and inserting his hand through the hole.

He flung it into the closet, where it disappeared into the darkest corner.

Christophe retrieved his notebook and pen from the valise. He sat with it as he ran a hand over the leather binding. A voice spoke to him, and he wrote.

 _Antoine,_

 _I am going to a party to-night. At first, I was insistent I stay with Maman, for we have run into a lot of trouble to do with our old school, and well, this morning I wasn't quite in the mood to be happy. But I am selfishly excited, as it has been so long since I was in a position to drink and be merry. I suppose I secretly wish for a bit of luck from you. You were always so cool and collected in these situations, and I feel like a giddy school-boy again._

 _Do you remember when we were in school together, and during the end of the year ball, I wanted to avoid having to dance with the conservatory girls since I was so shy about my two-left-feet? You made up some excuse and took me to the roof, where we drank and danced until dawn. I remember that well. I remember that we danced, and I didn't care how I looked under the stars._

 _I suppose I will not be without a lady to dance with tonight… Though there's not a moment that goes by that I don't wish that night with you had not ended. I keep your silence with me, here in my heart. Paris isn't the same without you._

 _Yours,_

 _Kristoffer_

Taking a deep breath, he closed the notebook and put it in his nightstand drawer. From the tabletop, he unfolded his glasses and situated them upon his nose. He also retrieved the gold pocket watch, but it felt hot in his hand. He secured it to his waistcoat and slipped it into the pocket before finally leaving his room, locking it up with a small brass key.

He found himself at the lace-curtained window looking out onto the street, where lamps were being dimmed and carriages ambled by. The apartment was quiet behind him, but he heard the sound of people clambering into evening dinners and social gatherings, at private homes, cafes and nightclubs all. He supposed it was time for him to join them, after mourning for so long. _Three years, really, for my father and for my friend._

Paris was such a gay and resplendent city, complete with a solid mask over its dark heart. So unlike him, who wore his own on his cheek… He'd tried to hold on to some kind of cool calm when he'd traveled to Sweden, but Agatha had seen straight through him when he'd met her at the train station. His cousin was a patient woman, but a knowing one, having mothered five children and big with another. She had seen the truth behind his words as he said: " _I wish I could have sung for my father one last time."_ How hard it was to feel the frustration of one who knows too much and wants you to admit it, too.

 _He couldn't wait to come home._

Rina had presented him with an opportunity — to spend time with him, and to regain the confidence he once lacked in himself when he made the promise never to sing again. Paris was opening up for him again, and the funeral march might just fade into a madrigal after all.

Christophe returned to the piano, where earlier in the afternoon he'd practiced scales and opened the hollow bench to sort through pages upon pages of abandoned sheet music. He'd picked four or five songs that he thought might work best, but two of them were _in_ Swedish. Those were the songs he knew lyrically by heart and needed little practice, so it was probably necessary for him to fall back on one should the others prove unacceptable.

But he was certain that the French song, a gentle and sincere little thing that spoke of longing, would be the hit of the party, whether or not he sang it well. "Coeur de parisienne," or _A Parisian's Heart,_ it was dreamy, unassuming, and simple. Perfect for a voice that had not been tested in three years. Yes, he should bring this one. He was certain to make a good impression that way.

Fanning through the rest of them, he caught a glimpse of the title "Mod och försakelse" — _Courage and Forsake._ He'd taught this one to Rina, once, but never what it meant. It was the violent undertone that spoke to him. Forsake everything, and become something entirely new. A life destroyed, and rebirthed. His face alighted as he reread the words, ones that no one but he would understand if he sang them at that party. What a strange situation it would be…

However, it was originally written for a soprano — Jenny Lind, who had sung on the Paris Opera stage (a different building than the Garnier at the time, or so his music history education had taught him) and dazzled audiences worldwide before retiring early for mysterious reasons. Jenny was a Swede, like him. An outsider who had found a home here, however temporary… This spoke to him this night in ways it had not done so before.

It would not be easy to open up his voice again, but he hoped it might feel natural, after all this time away.

Unprompted, the unruliest of curls popped free from its cage. Christophe looked at it cross-eyed from beyond his glasses, then blew a bit of hot air at it in defiance. "You couldn't be remotely decent tonight, could you?"

Rolling his eyes, he did the same with the French _chanson_ but threw in the Lind song just in case. Then he tucked the scrolled sheets into his breast pocket and slipped into the master bedroom to bid Maman goodnight.

She was sleeping already, so he bent over her and kissed her forehead gently. "Maman," he whispered, not loud enough to wake her. And truthfully she did not stir.

"I have a feeling I will return long _after_ midnight."

* * *

Climbing over hills, passing under early bloomed trees, and a clammy forehead conspired to spring _all_ of Christophe's hair out of place. It had taken thirty minutes to get to the house in Le Marais, with three or five more to be sure that this _gorgeously structured and gold embellished building in its entirety was Rina's home_ , but he was now quite certain.

He had to steel himself against being impressed. Before he went inside he tried arranging the curls in a less boyish manner, but it was really no use. Even if he lost the bounce in his hair, grew into the oversized jacket, and even shined his shoes, no amount of polishing could prepare him to step onto the marble floors of this house.

This was even more evident when a man in a tailcoat and white gloves opened the door. Christophe hadn't yet knocked, but by the looks of things this hook-nosed, black-eyed creature was always on the watch. He took a long moment to stare above his blondness before narrowing in on his face. And then his coat… and his shoes. He said nothing.

 _Just act natural… like you belong. Which you do! Because you were invited._

"I-I am here for the p-party, the C-Chagny family's party."

What was _that,_ Christophe? A seagull? A heated cat? The scraping of metal against concrete? Not the timbre of a _human_ voice, _certainly_. Maybe he should sing Jenny Lind's song in the original key, as he had _clearly_ jumped an octave since his manhood shriveled up—

The man held out his hand and beckoned him forward.

Christophe tried to enter, expecting the man to move to the side. He felt the hand push at his chest. "Ahem!" he chided. "Your _invitation_ , if you please."

Upon second glance, the extended hand _did_ seem to be a request for something, rather than a summoning. Christophe's eyes narrowed. "Uh… o-oh…" he issued, pathetically, nervously. He patted his form. "Mademoiselle Ri— I mean, de Chagny invited me…"

No, that wouldn't really work, would it? The servant raised a particularly bushy eyebrow, but his hand did not abate.

Christophe retrieved Rina's train ticket from his pocket, unfolding it and smoothing it against his knee. He gave it to the man, who studied it incredulously.

"This is a return ticket from Berlin, m'sieur."

"Th-the back. It's on the back."

The servant flipped the ticket languidly. There was no change in his facial expression when he handed it back to Christophe.

Instantly the door was closing on him. "Wait!" he panicked, shoving his body against the oak with surprising strength. "Please! She asked me to come and sing!"

The pressure slacked.

But only slightly. He opened the door enough to relay, "Dinner has already finished. Go through the gate and down the stairs. There is a side entrance there. Go to the grand salon and await your instructions."

"Grand salon, grand salon," he repeated quietly, and before he could call out a "thank you!" the door rattled shut.

His face was too red and his breath too shallow not to follow the servant's orders. He found the door in question underneath a stone awning and knocked before conscience told him not to. He stepped away, pacing and waiting. Wringing his hands. Another knock, quickly now. His heels picked up the pace. There were tiny windows on either side of the door. No light showed through them.

She'd written seven-thirty… Wasn't it seven-thirty though? He lifted his watch from its perch and found it to be off by over an hour. What a fool, how could he not remember to wind it up if he was going to wear it! Groaning, Christophe stuffed the watch and took the train ticket back out, with the intention of crumpling it up. But by the light of the lantern illuminating the sidewalk, he caught sight of it — _Your Little Lotte, R._

He thought fondly of her squirrely handwriting, all big curves and gently crowded letters in the space allotted. Not quite as delicate and refined as a Vicomtesse ought to have, certainly. But very Rina, head to toe. He remembered the day she'd told him she was a tiny little Vicomtesse, and that one day she'd have to be a proper lady and wear long dresses all the time.

" _It's really not fair, Christophe," she bemoaned as she picked leaves out of her nest of hair. She'd just finished accomplishing a somersault to demonstrate how easy it was to move about in a child's summer frock. "You boys will always be able to do that, and very soon I never shall again."_

" _Perhaps in private you'll be able to do all sorts of things like that, Rina," he'd offered, sitting cross-legged in the grass while nibbling on a honey-coated cracker._

 _Her face twisted, and he was worried he'd said something to upset her. She was an emotional little girl, after all. "Vicomtesses don't get to do anything in private. They must read, and write, and play piano, and be accomplished, and wear corsets all the time. And then they'll get married."_

 _Christophe's little cracker faltered from his lips and he cast his eyes. "Euh…" he muttered. "What is a 'Vicomtesse?'"_

 _Rina twisted a leaflet around her finger before it snapped into two pieces. "It's like a princess, only you don't get to rule a kingdom. You just have to behave yourself." She gave an exuberant sigh, then scooted closer to their picnic blanket. "My brother Felix's fiancé will be a Vicomtesse, soon. But I still have to be one. I wish she could be the only one and then I could just stay Rina."_

" _When will you be a Vicomtesse?"_

 _Her strong, sun-kissed face looked straight into his eyes, and she said so sullenly:_

" _I already am. That's the trouble."_

 _And she flopped upon the grass and bemoaned her dismal fate._

Not too dismal, it would seem. She knew how to read, for she'd clasped so tightly to that gilt edge book. She learned to write well, for her pencil scrapings bore the mark of a literate, expressive person. And she wore that mauve and gray dress that morning so lovely that it was unbelievable she'd ever skipped in shallow, muddy water and scraped her knees upon ragged bedrock.

Perhaps he could teach her to play the piano.

Christophe plastered a smile and stuffed the ticket back into his pocket, then knocked once more. This time, he waited only a moment before he tried to pull it open.

And it was unlocked, miraculously. The dim hallway stretched before him, but it only took a few moments to accustom his eyes. He shut the door behind him as a courtesy to his hosts and gave a terrible shudder — it was unexpectedly cold here. He made his way through the hall slowly, hands in front of him and feeling along the walls. There were a couple of stumbles before he finally heard laughter and music muffled behind a wall.

'How curious that they should keep the hall dark,' he thought to himself. But then again he had never been to a party of this kind, and who was he to know the customs of a Comte's family? Perhaps they would tell ghost stories in the next room and wanted total shade save for a lone candle.

But _was_ it the next room? As he walked the laughter grew distant again, and yet there had been no entrance to speak of on either wall when it was loudest. The only explanation he could think of was that they were… above.

"Hello…?" he called out. "I'm looking for the grand salon. I was invited by Mademoiselle de Chagny."

Not a soul responded back. He walked more quickly, fingers grazing the walls more fervently until his arms enveloped the coat rack. Of course, he was shown the back entrance. All the guests of nobility would enter through the front, and since he was just a friend there was a private door used by the family in their everyday hurry. Yes, that must be it.

His fingers found a raised metal disk with a stick embellishment, which moved when he touched it. Flipping the switch caused electric lights to flicker on overhead, the bulbs in question above him heating their squiggly little coils as lightning bursts in the darkness. Christophe's eyes spasmed, and he turned into the coat rack to shield them. When at last he relaxed, he blinked and adjusted again to the artificial light.

He was gripping an apron, not a coat. Releasing it, he stepped back to examine his surroundings. There was a row of aprons on top of aprons in front of him, and a bucket with sudsy water, and muddy boots. There was a flaking, ill-kept stairwell just after this fixture. On the opposite wall a network of bells, with plaques labeling their destinations — _morning room, library, dining room, lavender room, grand salon…_

" _Dinner has already finished… Go to the grand salon and await your instructions."_

He'd told the doorman he was to sing. That's hardly an invitation, but rather an employment of one's services.

So he was sent to the servant's entrance.

Realization flooded him. How did he expect it to go? That he'd walk in with the rest of the guests, kiss Rina on both cheeks, and sing merrily from the piano while they joined him for the chorus?! He was just hired help, a fixture in the salon before the men took their cigars and the ladies gossiped on the terrace. Oh, how could he _be_ so naive?!

No, no… Calm down… Rina couldn't have known, it was the servant who misunderstood, after all. She is innocent in all this. He closed his eyes, forced himself to remain calm and collected. Opening his mouth, he hoped that some of his hot breath could form into laughter, something reassuring. Antoine would have certainly laughed at this little mix-up. " _There's no trouble, just a little misunderstanding,"_ he would have said. And, chuckling: " _Don't fret, Christophe. Don't fret."_

A commotion down the hall. Gasping, he turned off the light just as a door opened and shut at the end of the corridor. Two figures had entered this space with him, giggling quietly and whispering to each other words he couldn't make out. Christophe, assuming it was a set of servants, stepped forward and started to ask for assistance.

"Don't you have to get back?" a male voice said a little louder with merriment.

"They won't miss me— now come here."

This voice halted his approach. Christophe side-stepped onto the stairwell, where he gripped the banister and covered his mouth tightly, his heart beating like a drum. He _recognized_ this voice. Just this morning he'd been acquainted with it, in fact.

It didn't matter if he could barely hear it from the roar of the train station's crowd, or even now when it was kept low and in secret, since the _other_ male voice confirmed it's owner for him:

"They're throwing this party for _you,_ Maurice. Aren't you being a bad boy?"

Chagny growled mischievously. "If you'll be bad with me."

Christophe felt as though he'd swallowed a hot stone, which dropped swiftly to his pelvis. It vibrated his blood until he was obliged to look again — to think again, no no, this couldn't possibly be _Rina's_ brother, could it?

There was no more talking. Only wet, sloppy sounds, little groans that pierced him in every particle of his throbbing muscles. Around the corner of the stair, down the hall, in the dim light he saw a black mop of hair arching over their two trembling bodies pressed against the oak paneling. One knee, he didn't know whose, anchored itself between the legs of the other, slowly riding up the pant leg until its firm placement elicited a groan — Maurice's groan. Maurice's…

And over Maurice's shoulder, he could see a taught jaw pulsing, eyes closing, a mouth opening as its mustache tickled the corner of the other man's ear. Suddenly he whipped them one-eighty, and now he was pinning Maurice by his pectorals.

"A little present," the other man said, scraping his clenched hands down, down, _down_ over that freshly taut body, divesting buttons of their holes and seams from their alignment, until finally, he knelt — _Christophe gulped_ — with face pressed against Maurice's manhood. An ecstatic sound, issuing from a euphoric face.

"Not very long, then…" Maurice chuckled, his fingers entwining in the man's mussed hair. His eyes, which had been trained upon his partner's features, flickered and shot daggers into Christophe's.

Transfixion's end.

He stiffly went up the stairs backward, until their sounds were barely discernible from the ones above. When he felt he was substantially distant, he let go of the death grip on the rail and pivoted on the first landing, bounding up the rest of the steps until he found where it led. It opened on a kitchen teaming with harried, sweat-stained people just sitting down to supper at a wood-block table.

His face was as red as theirs, though for different reasons he imagined. They all gaped at him as though he were a ghoul. He paused to take a deep breath and adjust his glasses. Then, in the most composed manner he could muster, said:

"I am going to the grand salon. I was invited by Mademoiselle de Chagny."

His voice had the affect of a madman, but it was likely they were too stunned by his sudden appearance to react quickly enough to stop him.

He ran blindly through the halls, leaving the debasing laughter they decided upon and passing confused footmen carrying empty trays from what was probably a fine dinner. He touched everything — vases of gardenias and their soft-skin petals, cool brass handles on doorways, twinkling crystal lamps shining prismic flames upon his fingernails. He wanted a grounding, a pinch from this dream of embarrassment.

Christophe shuddered to a stop, heaving against a frame with a door mostly closed, save for a sliver of light spilling out into the hall. His ears were ringing with noise… noise noise, a terrible sound. This wasn't music… Yes it was, yes it was. He bent over himself, trembling. Fingers, touching his cheeks. His other hand patting his chest, feeling the textured weave of the jacket and the sheet music which lay under it. An echo.

Light swallowed him, and his spine sprung into line.

"I'll go and find him, he's probably hiding in his room."

The white noise of his brain snapped into the real, tactile sounds of laughter and music. Rina had nearly collided with him as her head was turned away. She was totally dazzling, a vision of cream skin and indigo gown, and a face slowly tainted by rouge shyness. She pressed her gloved fingers to her parted lips.

"Christophe! Oh, dear, I was beginning to wonder if you were alright."

Rina shut the door firmly behind her and grasped his wrist, picking up her skirt and guiding him a few paces away. "I'm so sorry, I wrote that you were to arrive at seven-thirty, but I'm afraid I didn't know what time we would start. You see this whole party was a whim of mine this morning and we hadn't set the time when I told you, and Philippe got it into his head that we shouldn't _dare_ start at seven-thirty because he knew the Duke of Montresor would _have_ to be at the party and the man never stays out past ten o'clock, which would hardly give him time to enjoy himself, and I was so worried that you might arrive late because of it and you _did, and I'm so so sorry_ that I couldn't reach you in time, as I didn't know where you lived and by the time I sent round for your address it would have been too late anywa— Why are you laughing at me? Oh please, Christophe, this isn't funny!"

Christophe was gripping the sides of his neck. His laughter was a release of sorts. He couldn't very well tell her that her babbling was the antidote to his burgeoning embarrassment, or how relieved he was to hear that he really _was_ an invited guest, rather than a singing pony she wanted to show off. Or _anything_ of what he'd seen or heard that night. All he could think of to say was:

"You are a hell of a girl, Rina."

Her dark blonde coif seemed to grow two inches taller. She'd puffed her chest, preparing to counter with something witty but finding nothing was suitable. For her mousey little frown scooped up and helped his laughter along until they were both beaming at each other.

"How are you?" he asked as he smoothed the fabric of his person.

"Awful, just awful. Maurice has disappeared and Philippe's friends have been a terrible bore." She brought him over to a plush settee in the hall, and Christophe noticed the same doorman guarding the front entrance from inside. He gave him a dark look for spite, then turned his attention to the woman who invited him.

"I… I'm sure Maurice is overwhelmed with how kind his friends are for attending on such short notice. You said you suggested it just this morning?"

She nodded solemnly, clasping her hands together. "Yes… Quite stupid of me. I should have known Philippe would make a bigger deal out of it that it should be. It was supposed to be just a dinner, but you'll find it's gone a bit off its hinge."

Yes, this was just what he needed. "I am sure I will enjoy myself. I am sorry for being late, even if it was _partly_ your fault…" he pinched her arm and laughed at the face she made. "I am grateful I can skip straight to dancing. I'm afraid conversation about my day would prove dreary for your friends."

Rina gasped, her hands flying to either cheek. "Oh, my, I'm so sorry… I didn't think… Are you allowed to go to parties right now? Your father…"

He'd been forming a quizzical brow, but cast it off in favor of a mawkish one. "No, no, that's not what I mean," he said with a smirk. "I don't consider myself much in mourning, at least not now." Christophe stood and put his hands in his pockets. The party beyond the doors beckoned him with promises that he would not have to speak of his father anymore.

"What do you mean then?"

"I…" his face heated, and he turned away when Rina stood up and touched his arm with concern. "My Maman… that is my benefactor, I call her Maman because she is the closest thing… She was informed today that her late husband's school has closed and our pension is to be lost."

How superficial he was to say such a thing! He hadn't meant to tell her this, but there were other things which lurked under his own "solid mask" that needed to stay there. Things that Rina never _ever_ need know.

Rina, who stood before him in dim lamplight and looked like a blue flower not yet in blossom. Who held her stomach and cast her eyes to the floor, searching for something to say. Christophe breathed deeply and took a chance. He pulled out one hand from his pocket and lifted her chin, gently, with the tips of his fingers. "Little Lotte, what are you thinking of…?"

Her dark eyes sparkled rainbows, coming from the crystal fixtures dotting the ceiling above them. He realized it was still gaslight in here, rather than the electricity of the servant's entrance. "Hmm… Is it… butterflies or elephants?"

Christophe's smile revealed his teeth, and he conceded: "Butterflies."

Rina sighed in reassurance. "I am so pleased to have my friend again," she sweetly crooned. Anchoring herself on his arms, she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a chaste kiss upon his cheek. " _Don't you dare tell a soul I just did that,_ " she whispered. "Now! Come and sing for us!"

 _Come and sing._

It had the effect of paralyzing him — more so than when he'd been downstairs and involuntarily spying on this girl's family. Yes, he'd brought music. Yes, the god Apollo had decreed, from the roof of the Paris Opera House, that he _must_ do this thing. Yes, he _promised_ her. But as she dragged him excitedly into the light of the grand salon, he was quietly screaming.

No, no… he was not ready! Not yet! At least a drink? A spot of dancing first?

It wasn't to be a natural, easy thing after all, as a thousand eyes alighted upon him.

Well, not a thousand. At least twenty pairs, with only two that he knew. Rina's own, and the filmy eyes of an old aunt sitting on a lounge chair by the wall, who he remembered from their summer by the sea. The rest were totally foreign, and almost instantly hostile to the ill-kempt stranger who interrupted their gaiety. _Like Parisians do_ , he thought. Painted lips curled up and well-groomed brows lowered to regard him. The room was large but cozy with this many people, some in the middle of the floor having paused in their dance (the music dying off when the musicians caught wind of the tension in the room), others mingling by the gelatin table, and still more huddled together in a group deigning him only slight notice.

One man from this group stepped forward, and Christophe immediately recognized Rina's dark brown eyes in his. He was middle-aged, tall, back straight and refined. Darker hair dotted with gray strands slicked back successfully with gel, and a trim but full mustache decorating his lip. A smokey cigar hovered by his mouth, in a hand adorned with a signet ring.

Rina pulled Christophe forward by his arm, and he mechanically followed. "Philippe, I promised you he would be here, and now here he is. What do you say to that?"

Comte Philippe de Chagny, then, huffed what could be mistaken for a bit of laughter. Christophe knew otherwise, by that look in his eye. "So he is…" Rina's eldest brother looked Christophe up and down — down, he noticed, far enough to find shoes which never should have set foot in this house to begin with. At least five sets of eyes mimicked him precisely.

Most of the room, however, returned to whatever they were doing, though the music did not start up again. Rina let go of his arm and scuttled to Philippe's side. Her indigo gown was actually cornflower blue, Christophe realized, and it accented her tanned skin so well that he forgot he was looking at his old seaside friend as she leaned up and spoke quietly to her brother, gloved hand hiding the movement of her lips against his ear. How lovely and warm she was, against the strange coldness of fluorescent light in this room.

After their short discussion, the contents of which Christophe could certainly have no idea, Philippe took his other hand out of his pocket and extended it forth. Christophe was pulled into a sturdy, painful handshake. "It's good of you to come, Monsieur Daae. Marinne has done nothing but praise your talent. I'm sure you're aware that we are patrons of the Opera House and have a hand in the productions, so I take her recommendation quite seriously."

"I-I did not know that, Monsieur. But I am grateful that she remembers me so fondly."

"Ladies, gentlemen," Philippe exclaimed, overlapping Christophe's response as though he hadn't even heard it. Thankfully he let go of his hand. The Comte gestured to the room and gathered the rest of the party-goers to their sides. "My sister has concocted a special treat for us this evening."

He looked to Rina's side, and her face was supportive until she saw the skittish look in his eyes. His pulse was increasing. Where was the beverage table?

"I don't know if any of you had the great opportunity to hear the great Jenny Lind sing so many years ago. She was of the finest quality artists." Philippe, turning to Christophe, said with a strange glitter in his eye, "Her country is most generous for sending her successor, who I am delighted to announce will be our Garnier's new Hamlet next season! Please, join me in welcoming Swedish tenor Kristoffer Daae to Paris!"

 _What._

The applauding crowd parted so that a direct path could be made to the musician's corner, where a baby grand piano and string quartet was waiting. He turned back to Rina, who cluelessly clapped alongside her brother and ushered him along. His face was as red as the dyed gelatin.

Christophe numbly pulled out his sheet music when he reached the pianist. He noticed with a grim awareness that it was certainly not Rina's amateur sister-in-law, but a professional accompanist. He adjusted his glasses with shaking fingers. The pages of the music were curled, and even crumpled in places when he'd bent and pressed against walls in secret. That was just the way the night had been, and suddenly he felt it was about to get a lot worse from here.

He had two songs in his hands and a hushed crowd at his back. The accompanist, a little weasel of a man with a bushy beard and hollow eyes, cleared his throat and held out his hand expectantly.

He alternated back and forth, and the watch in his pocket — his father's gold watch — was ticking in tandem with his accelerating heartbeat. Swallowing hard, Christophe released the Swedish song to the accompanist and tucked the other French melody back into his pocket. He whispered to him the key of the song, then swiped his hands over his hair.

When he turned he saw Rina, thankfully, smiling kindly at him and clasping her hands to her heart. Philippe was next to her, reserved but interested in his performance. He could not trace any of the hostility he'd found earlier.

But he also saw Maurice, standing behind Rina. In the light, he was clean-shaven and impeccably dressed — one would never know what events had lurked beneath their feet. He was glaring straight into Christophe's very soul.

"T-this song was originally written for Mademoi— Miss Lind," he began breathlessly. "Please forgive it being an octave lower, as I do believe I hit puberty twelve years ago."

His audience laughed. "Charming, charming," some said. Even Philippe nodded in approval. He couldn't believe he said something so sly, but he could barely feel the breath entering his lungs, much less communicate between his mouth and brain.

All this was unfortunate, considering it was at that moment the ramifications of Philippe's introduction finally registered with him.

" _...who I am delighted to announce will be our Garnier's new Hamlet next season! Please, join me in welcoming Swedish tenor Kristoffer Daae to Paris!"_

So many things were off about that statement: the fact that Philippe knew he was a tenor was one, as the man had never heard him sing; another the specific use of his Christian name, the spelling of which he had not publically used since before he met Rina; why welcome him to Paris when they could welcome him _home_ , for this had been his residence for half of his life; but most importantly —

 _Hamlet?!_

 _The man hand never heard him sing, and yet he had given him the part of Hamlet?!_

The chords to the song opened with aplomb, and dead away did Christophe faint.

* * *

Given _how long the chapter is, I hope you don't mind that it ends on a cliffhanger! I really struggled with this one (I know, I say that every time) so let me know if it works for you, and what doesn't. I hope you enjoyed it though!_

 _Please read and review, and see you next week! Another major character will appear in the next chapter, one who I know you all have been DYING to meet!_

 _As a note: "Coeur de parisienne," which will be actually sung in the fic, is a modern song made popular by Arletty, not period accurate (I recommend the cover by Rufus Wainwright). However, "Mod och försakelse" is a real song that was written for the famous Jenny Lind by a composer whose name won't be revealed until another chapter (though you could always google it)._

 _-Rose_


	5. Inky Cloak

_AN: A day early as I'm attending the final phantom stream of_ operaofthephantom _on_ tumblr _tomorrow! I bet you're excited!_

 _Trigger warnings for this chapter: mentions of violence, graphic suicidal thoughts, depression, harsh language._

* * *

" _Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'  
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother…  
That can denote me truly…_

 _For they are actions that a man might play:  
But I have that within which passeth show;  
These but the trappings and the suits of woe." - Hamlet, Act I, Scene II_

An elixir, purple in color.

How simple and innocent it rested against his leg, tied by a black cord and bobbing gracefully in its glass-made flask. Contained within it was everything he needed to get the job done. He would build a fire on his meager hearth, wrap himself in his warmest, softest afghan, and lean against his piano. He would drink it, then slowly fall into the deepest, permanent sleep.

If he had a sou for every time he conjured up such a vision, he'd rest easily in the lap of luxury, on a hill somewhere in the south of France in a villa no one could find. But he'd not have to wait long to conjure up more of the same. For it would _be_ the same, and no amount of solitude could cure that which has built itself up in his heart.

He was assured it would not hurt — after all, he'd watched the apothecary grind and mix the ingredients himself, and his experience with those herbs and methods told it to be true. That elixir would slip down his throat and destroy every nerve in his body, erode his black-with-sin veins until there was nothing left God could call his first true mistake.

And Aimé Beauregard would be no more.

Ha!

Aimé Beauregard? _That_ old fiend? But he never _was_.

Yes, here he walked now, measured steps in the darkness. His cloak as inky and black as the oncoming experience of death, most of his body disappearing into the night. Save for that pale, blanched head that carried untold horrors.

Aimé could be anyone from behind — a dark, mysterious figure, but still plainly human. Some would guess an old man, by the looks of his snowy white head of hair, but they would be only half-mistaken. Nearly forty-two in body (though he often wondered how accurate was his counting), he was ancient in spirit. If one looked with unfocused eyes there might have been the makings of a noble ear, a strong neck, and even a handsome jawline. If eyes were unfocused, one could pretend that the porcelain mask which covered nearly his entire face was nothing but the sallow skin of a recent illness.

Eyes would never unfocus when gazing upon him. They would always stare directly, in acute horror which would stretch the opposing face into the grips of insanity.

Yes, here _he_ was. But never had _Aimé_ been.

 _Blast Aimé Beauregard!_

What a deceitful, drunken name. So full of himself. It's as if he believed a name like that could solve everything, that he would be "beloved" as sure as the sun rises if God spoke it to him. What a fool, what a fool.

Aimé was already no more, for all intents and purposes. He'd died three years ago when what was left of his soul had failed him. Now _he_ would be no more. The last of his nine lives, only this time the death would not be put-upon. It would seize his body and black out everything. He had only flames to look forward to, he imagined.

So he sought out an easy death, for contrast. He imagined this would feel much like swimming without holding one's breath. Not drowning, but breathing out coolness, the texture of the soul slipping away.

Violent death shattered the soul like a vase knocked to the ground, all its contents spilling out and dirtying everything within reach.

God told him _that_ was what he deserved.

He _should_ shoot himself.

He _should_ hang himself.

He should throw himself onto the wings of Pegasus, from the foot of Apollo.

He should build himself a pyre in his study, kindling made from the remnants of a smashed piano and destroyed violin, ones that had not made music in _three God damned years._

He should dive into the lake without a reed and drown with real water. He knew how painful it was.

But he'd already chosen to fall asleep.

 _ **Fuck**_ _you, you simpering COWARD._

If there had been a soul on the streets they would have run in the other direction. The look in his eyes, ones that inflamed red and gold with self-loathing fury, would have burned the very heart of an innocent. Thankfully, he walked alone, unfettered by wandering eyes and screams.

Somehow it was peaceful that night. Not many sounds or commotions to accompany him along the road from the twentieth _arrondissement_ to the ninth. His cloak floated on the breeze, quicker and colder at night in early spring, and his hands fidgeted deep in his pockets.

He was not in a hurry to be home, because the night was so calm. It was a last gift to himself, to enjoy the rustling of new-leafed trees and feel the cool touch of the moon on his lips. There were no angry sounds to speak of, inside or out. In fact, there was nothing.

He hardly _could_ enjoy it.

For there had been nothing for so long, it was a great deal of effort to make this _something_ , this death-trip, last.

Aimé stopped still in the darkness. His grip on the silver watch in his pocket was enough to puncture the skin, and his eyes cast down. He should drink the potion now, and accept the fate his body would have when he was found on the pavement: embalmed on the rack of a _grand guignol_ for a thousand prying eyes. A permanent role for him to play. At least he would entertain the masses, as long as people enjoyed being scared. He imagined that would be forever, as he was scared now.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck… coward…" he whispered, irreproachable tears gathering before his eyes. He ripped his hand from his pocket, fluttering it over his mask before he let go of the watch and brought both to his face. He lifted the edge of the porcelain and passed his fingers over the ridges of his eyelids.

 _God,_ he thought. _Why have you taken it from me? What evil have I done that you haven't gifted to me a hundred times over, for you to punish me this way?_

Aimé nearly tripped over his own feet standing in place when the body collided with him.

His knees buckled, but he remained upright. He managed to situate the mask back in place before he instinctively turned round, to reproach the foolhardy person with a deathwish.

But they slipped past him, a sob ringing clear and true in the empty night air. A sound like metal clattered to the sette stone at his feet, and he felt a texture like a dry leaf brush against the back of his hand.

" _Jag, jag, jag är ledsen!"_

He heard the voice before he managed to see the face, for when he looked forward the body was several yards away, half running and half falling to the ground in its manic hurry. It was a man, that much was certain.

Aimé bent and picked up the metal which had stopped next to his boot. They were a pair of glasses — luckily he had not stepped on them, so the lenses were intact. He folded them and saw the other article which had fallen from the man, settled a few paces away.

When he gripped the curled sheet, he knew _exactly_ what it was, and the effect it had on him was intense.

He was nearly a block away from the nearest street lamp, but even with that dim light, he could see the small dots and lines which made up the notes. He ran his fingers along the first staff, hardly noticing the words or the title, but hearing the melody clear as a bell in his head.

Aimé looked up, in the direction of the man who had fled so quickly without his glasses or music. Luckily he was still within his line of sight, nearly two blocks down and heaving against another street lamp.

The glasses in one hand, sheet music in the other — _and poison at your hip, you forget —_ there was the sense that Aimé had a duty to return the items to this man. Any normal person, for surely that's what this stranger was, held such great store in these kinds of things, but in their haste would forsake everything, as though nothing mattered.

Of course Aimé, in his recent quest to be deceased, had nothing here to tie him to reality, for a man as ugly as he had no business having the pleasure of tokens and baubles.

It was unlikely this man was as ugly and degenerate as he. Did _he_ deserve to lose what bound him to this earth?

When the man resumed his trek, Aimé followed.

His steps were quick, silently catching up until he was a block away, rather than two. This allowed him to keep sight of the man, whose mess of golden hair was easy to detect when it shined underneath lamplight. His target finally slowed to a walk when he reached his first turn, and they kept an even distance for about fifteen minutes. The man never looked back.

He told himself as they walked he would wait for the man's first stop, get his attention by throwing his voice, then quietly slip the items into his hand before vanishing into an alleyway.

But he did not make any stops now, not until they reached his destination.

And well, by that point Aimé knew where they were going, and could no more approach the man now than he could compose a counterpoint in three-four time for violin and cello.

The cemetery — _the_ cemetery — was blue in the morning light. A light fog had developed, a premonition of oncoming rain. The mist swallowed the fair-haired man up until his black coat had disappeared among the most crowded tombstones.

Aimé listened carefully for footfalls, but he could detect none. If he went hunting for the man on his own he might stumble too close to him and be seen. Therefore, he went where the Father was certainly pointing him by this test and found himself at the final resting place of Hercule St. Clair.

When he realized what he'd done, where he walked and how he'd gotten there, Aimé wanted to kick himself. Predictable, of course. Why should he not deign _him_ a visit, on the eve of his own self-slaughter? He would never measure up to the man lying at his feet. Oh, how he _betrayed_ him.

He was never more certain he ought to dash the vial of poison to pieces and hang himself instead. Perhaps by his own garrotting wire, which would slit his throat disgustingly in two.

He gripped the music and the glasses to either side of his head, squeezing his eyes shut. A growl threatened to erupt, but the wind picked up and howled for him.

Oh, God, this should be the end of it now. Everything came so sharply to him, a life ill-used flashing before his gold-swirled eyes. If God had given him a stronger soul, one that could withstand any taunts or torments, how then might he have fared still with this face? Would he be a dimwit errand boy for a nunnery? A stableboy for a noble family, too ugly and sterile to make life for their blossoming daughter harder? Perhaps a specimen of medical study with access to a library, where he could read and read, and pretend that he did not want something more for himself?

No… He had been stubborn enough, incensed enough, _self-righteous_ enough to claim his body as his own and defile it mercilessly with all the vices worthy of a monster.

' _Father…'_ he thought, ' _how could you leave me like this? How could you leave me_ alone _?'_

"Antoine," he heard distinctly as the wind died down, "how could you leave me like this? How could you leave me _alone_?"

Aimé gasped. It was as if the sweet tenor voice was calling to him, for it spoke directly and seemed to accuse him the way he had accused his creator.

He looked up, and found a blond mess of hair peeking out from above a waist-high gravestone, a stone's throw away. The man must be slumped to his knees. He did not continue, only Aimé could hear the most pitiful, desolate weeping.

His grip on his head slackened, and he brought his hands in front of him to look at what he'd stolen. The glasses, he now saw in the light, where gold wire-rimmed and oval, and the wax nubs which rest upon one's nose — at least he _assumed_ — were worn and oily from constantly being pressed against skin. The music sheet had been rolled up, and parts were crinkled where one pressed too sharply against that scroll.

He studied the music now, one hand using the glasses as a personal baton. It was such a simple melody, written for a soprano ( _my God, Jenny Lind!_ What he wouldn't give to have heard her sing) but lowered an octave by scribbled pencil marks and neat, boyish handwriting denoting the new key. The piano staff was even less difficult.

The words were most certainly in Swedish if he remembered Mademoiselle Lind's nationality correctly. He did not know the language, nor any Scandinavian tongue, but "försakelse" most certainly meant "forsaken."

Monsieur Erik Gustaf Geijer had written a fine song.

Aimé _hated_ him for it.

But he was already singing it. Before he could help himself, or before he realized the consequences of his actions, his voice rang out through the stillness. He did not attempt the words but found the melody was not hard to fill in with a French nursery rhyme. Nonsense syllables, really.

Nevertheless, he sang it as if it was composed by Mozart.

His voice was carried along the breeze, and if anyone else was in the cemetery to hear, well, he most certainly didn't care. He _was_ going to kill himself, anyway. Who would begrudge a dying man a last wish?

To sing again felt… wonderful, even if it was someone else's music.

The notes rose higher and higher until this baritone was worried he'd strain his vocal chords, for the part was transcribed for a high tenor. What did it matter if he broke them now when the world had no further use for them? What did it matter if he—

" _Ack! Vet, den skall ditt lif föröda,  
men vet, den är af himmelska art."_

He emitted a kind of yelp when it happened. The baritone stood gobsmacked and silent when the tenor took over, the original words intact. He breathed, deeply and desperately, as though he was taking in air for the first time. The paper fluttered to the ground, his hand slack and thrumming with desire.

That _voice_!

It was only half-trained, and he could pinpoint the exact lesson the owner left off on when it was cut short. Whatever reason could not have been good enough, for what he lacked in training it was abundant in beauty. But not just beauty, oh no. Many people had a beautiful voice — himself included, one could say — but this one possessed all the qualities of goodness that he had never dared sought out. Not purity — this voice knew sorrow, heartbreak, and most of all the passion which burrows inside the loin of every man on this earth.

The goodness was because it sang _to sing_ , and not to just be heard.

He could tell, for one who only sings for the attention of one's peers fails to reach the heights to which that voice came.

And it came — falling into his arms, which slumped against his stomach to contain the butterflies wanting free; it came to his closed eyes, his slack lips and his open ears; it came to the earth which threatened to swallow him whole.

It was over as suddenly as it began. The voice stopped, and he was left awkwardly embracing himself. He clutched his throat and searched wildly for eyes to connect with. He'd never once longed for another man's eyes, for them to see him and to _know._

But the owner of the glasses was gone.

The space beyond the unfamiliar grave was empty. He'd slipped away without him noticing — oh how _clever_ he was when Aimé was busy playing the fool. Yes, Aimé Beauregard was a damned fool.

He picked up the song composed by Erik Gustaf Geijer and wove through the headstones, his eye never leaving the one he knew for certain the blond angel had been weeping against. He was clumsy, manic — he fell against a large slab of stone and heard a crash, feeling a wetness against his skin. Parting his cloak, he found the glass vile had shattered against granite, and the purple liquid dripped down his pant leg and into the opening of his boot.

Cursing and laughter were entwined. He continued to make his way until at last, he stood at the small plot under which a body had its final resting place. He formed the name silently in his mouth.

" _Antoine..."_

Died three years prior. Nothing but the date and his name, though a sigil in the shape of a lyre was engraved above it. He traced this languidly with his fingertips and wondered if all this was real. If _he_ was really still alive.

Glancing from the music to the withered flowers at the foot of the headstone, he made a quick decision and rolled up the music the way it was before, discarding the bouquet and replacing it with the song. He tucked the glasses into his breast pocket and left.

When he passed the cemetery gate and was back on track to his home, he deposited the rest of the broken vial shards into a trash bin. Those pants would have to be washed, and the now purple stockings thrown out. He was dismayed that it was now morning, and he would be seen by the early risers and servants on their way to their posts, so he hired a cab and paid more than it was worth for silence.

The carriage rumbled on as it began to rain until it deposited him at the corner of _le Place de l'Opera_ and the _Boulevard des Capucines_. He stole to the _Rue Scribe_ side entrance and slipped quietly down through the catacombs. In a haze, he made it all the way inside before he'd stripped from his inky cloak to his skin in the bathroom, flinging the mask onto his bed and wandering to the piano.

Naked, he sat upon the bench and blew over the keys. He took a sweat rag and wiped what dust he couldn't blow away, then ran it over the lid, and the music desk, and the oak mantle. He rearranged the papers scattered upon it — old music he hadn't finished, nor touched in three years.

Erik played a variation on the melody for eight solid hours, until he fell asleep plastered against the keys still ringing out harmonic discord.

* * *

 _AN: I know you are anxious to see what happened to Christophe, but he needed to take a backseat for our favorite sewer goblin. He was begging and screaming to have a turn, so I had to give in. I don't think you mind. ;D_

 _I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Stay tuned next week to discover Christophe's side of the scene and find out what happened after the last cliffhanger!_

 _Don't forget to review!_

 _-Rose_


	6. Is it the Ghost?

_AN: I'm particularly proud of this chapter. I finally feel like all my themes and plot points are leading to a good place. I'm so excited for what's in store! Enjoy this chapter!_

 _10/7/18: This chapter has been slightly edited to accomodate future plot developements. If you read this chapter prior to this date, please re-read so you'll be up to speed! Specifically re-read the letter at the end of the chapter!_

* * *

The haze was lifting. The fog over his eyes was clearing, and Christophe could see again.

And the light was bright, even though it was filtered by curtains and a dirty window pane. Nevertheless, it had to be morning, though his face still felt weighted down by stones and his hair clung damp to his forehead.

The ceiling was in full view. A spider crept by to a crack in the door, where a web was forming. It was a dark and small spider, with thick legs and a beady body. Christophe thought there might be _une petite mouche,_ a little fly, in its mouth.

"Antoine," he whispered. He could still hear his voice from his dreams, and it made his stomach churn. Light baritone, lilting a taunting folk song though he didn't know the real words… Antoine's voice floating through early morning light…

 _Morning_? What time?!

He sat up, initially too quickly but his laudanum thick limbs soon slowed him down. He cradled the crown of his head in his right palm and force-blinked the headache from appearing. It was no use; he was as tensely coiled as the curls falling from his scalp.

Christophe blindly felt for the covers, but his hand found paper instead. Paper, and the damp weaved texture of a black jacket he knew so well.

Tentatively, he opened his eyes and surveyed beneath him. Yes, the jacket was still holding up his tired arms, and though it was undone the necktie dangled from his throat like two noodles from the fork of his head. The front of his person was slightly drier, but he felt rainwater dripping from his back. He cursed, smacking the wet bedspread with his right hand.

The action rustled the pages, some falling off the slope of his body. His eyes darted from one to the other, little black dots covering the bed as would an ant invasion. He worked through the pain in his temple, stacking sheet after sheet after _bloody goddamned sheet_ on top of each other, until he could see his wrinkled bed. The quilt was still folded at the end, and his valise still rested open upon it. His scarf spilled out from its gaping maw as if to taunt even the most penitent of Christophes.

He reached into his waistcoat and retrieved the pocket watch. He flicked it open, and all he found was stopped time, the little second hand pulsing without advancing at the same pace as his heart. Leaning against the headboard, he looked closely. He traced the frame of the white face with his fingertip, then moved it to the center of the lid. A thumbnail scraped over a line of words nearly worn away.

His mouth opened. Stale air came out, and he could taste it on his tongue. How did it get there? When had he drunk whiskey, or brandy, or whatever it was that still burned his throat? It had gone down and destroyed any semblance of sanity within him. He was waking up from that long dream and only just barely remembering all he'd done.

It was the longest night of his life. Even longer than when Antoine died.

For then he'd known it would eventually end, however miserably and unwanted. This night had been one to stretch on and on, and now colors were missing. He didn't know exactly when it had ended, or if he would ever find out. Only bits and pieces remained…

He smelt the death of the cemetery on his skin. And remembered her blue dress, and how her hair was arranged around her ears.

And a black head of hair digging into the jugular of a mustached stranger.

And a name he didn't want for himself, one that had been thrust upon him: _Hamlet_.

" _Christophe!"_

It was Maman's voice. He sat up again, this time swinging his legs over and putting the watch back in his pocket. He would wind it later.

She sounded her usual self, needing only the comfort of his presence in the morning. He got up groggily, intending to answer the call, but he found he was still in his shoes! He scoffed at himself, slapping his hand upon the wood door and groaning. There would be no hearing the end of it once he stepped outside like this.

" _Christophe! Where are you?"_

He did not know what time it was. He glanced from his bed to his wardrobe and quickly took off the jacket, flinging it upon his desk and discarding everything else to the floor. There would be time to clean later. He changed into his clothes from yesterday since he was overall in want of a wash and did not want to soil laundered clothes. Maman called again.

"Coming, mother! Just… two minutes!"

Christophe hopped into his pants, his knee buckling and he only just caught himself on the corner of his desk. His head was positively throbbing, and he wished they had raw eggs. A dose of tea would do him good, perhaps. Coffee would be even better.

The linen shirt came on next, and then he clipped his suspenders and pulled them over his shoulders as he rolled them. He rotated his hips, his neck, and stood on one foot to stretch the other leg, alternating the same. For decency's sake he slipped on his dress robe (a hand-me-down of the Professor's he liked very, very much) and house shoes, then went to his nightstand for his glasses.

It was odd, because they were not there.

His ritual was to take them off last at night and sit them next to his gas lamp on top of whatever book he was reading. Instead, his journal was lying open next to a glass with a little amber liquid, pen cap not screwed on (he groaned internally at the wasted dried ink) and messy scrawl on the right page. It was certainly his handwriting, but this early and this headache prevented him from deciphering more than Antoine's name. He shut the cover and resolved to read it later, when his head was clearer. Perhaps it would tell him more about what he was missing from last night.

Christophe shuffled through his father's papers again, and his valise, and the corners of the bed and the floor beside his headrest. Maman called incessantly, and he could hear her cane catching upon the rug outside. He reassured her, though he was not reassured himself. He went to his black jacket and turned it inside out, finding nothing but some grass and the ticket with the party information on the back in Rina's hand, now ruined from the rain. He groaned, going to the waistcoat and finding that empty too. Then his pant pockets, and nothing.

The room was devoid of glasses.

He grasped his forehead and spun around. " _Merde…"_

A scream just outside his room.

Christophe sprinted out, whipping the door open and finding a long-tressed and underdressed Adelaide gasping breathlessly against the other side of the hallway, her cane pointing forebodingly above him in the corner of the doorway.

He stepped outside and looked to where she gestured, and found the spider from earlier crawling down the frame, quite quickly for such small legs. Then again, there _were_ eight of them.

"C-Christophe, squash it! Squash it squash it! Ohhh…" Maman whimpered pathetically, hiding her face in her hands. He looked at her and smiled softly.

"It's alright dear…" he said, and re-entered his room. He went to his desk and retrieved a blank sheet of paper from the drawer, then rolled it into a cone shape. A scroll, actually… a scroll of paper… his hands buzzed with familiarity, and he struggled to recall what his body was telling him.

"Christophe…" Maman continued to moan, and he returned to her. The spider was now halfway to the floor, and without hesitating, he sealed up one end of the paper, then pressed the other edge gently but firmly to the wood underneath where the spider was walking. He followed it as it tried to avoid the makeshift capsule, then shifted its little legs until it finally started to crawl into the cone.

"Kill it!" his foolish mother said, and he rolled his eyes where she could not see.

"Yes, Maman… I'm taking care of it."

He jostled the cup until the spider fell into the bottom where he pinched the paper together to keep it from spilling out. He went to the window in his bedroom, parting the curtains and throwing it open to reveal the Paris morning.

There was a box of flowers attached to the sill that he would water when he could. He noticed they were blooming again after his three weeks away, and that the rain had soaked the soil until it was nicely moist again. They were forget-me-nots, and the largest bloom was where he shook the spider out of the cone. It attached itself to the petals and the flowers wavered from the new weight until they straightened out. Christophe crumpled the paper and threw it in his wastebin, and before he closed the window he thought he saw one leg of the spider raise and hold in a goodbye.

What a silly notion. He returned to the silly girl who'd been so frightened of such a bug, and held her worn face in his hands.

"There now, it's gone. In my wastebasket, squished."

She breathed a sigh of relief into his palm, mashing her lips as he kissed her forehead.

"Maman, have you eaten?"

She shook her head, and he sighed as he turned a strand of black hair over his fingers, setting it lightly on her shoulder and taking her hand. "Come on, I'll help you dress and then we'll find something."

Victoria had never returned, just as he thought. It was now twelve o'clock, and soon after she finished dressing and they came to the kitchen the delivery boy arrived with a supply of food, a service they'd long subscribed to but would have to eliminate now. Christophe reluctantly counted out from the roller desk what he owed the boy for the eggs (!), milk, bread, butter and inexpensive cheeses that usually made up their regular diet.

When he came back to the door, his mother was patting the red haired boy on the head and smiling sweetly at him.

"I got a chicken in me cart downstairs, madame, if you're interested."

"Ooh, yes, you bring that right up here young man! When you return we'll have an extra something special for you!"

"Awright!" he exclaimed as he sprinted back down the stairs.

Christophe watched perplexed with the coins in his hand, coming to stand by Adelaide and touching her shoulder, concerned. "Mother, do you remember what happened yesterday?"

She looked at him for a moment without recognition, but then flapped her hand. "Oh, don't worry about that, dear. Don't worry, don't worry."

"I don't think—"

"We'll have a chicken tonight to celebrate you coming home. You'll go to market after we eat to fetch more ingredients and you'll help your Maman cook it when you get home." She pinched his cheek, in her usual fashion, and he clutched the coins tightly in his hand. "You haven't told me about the party! I want to hear all about it over breakfast! Or rather lunch, my sleepy boy…!"

"I think I should spend the day searching for work."

"Pish! You'll do as I say."

"But Maman—"

Her face began scrinching into a point as he became more obstinate. "No 'buts!' Ah!" she said, turning to the door with a wider smile than she had before. "There's our man with the chicken!"

They heard the boy bounding up the stairs, and when he appeared it was with the chicken trapped by the legs. Only, something was wrong with the bird. Something terribly, terribly amiss.

It was alive, you see.

When the boy came to the threshold he set it free, and it clucked and screamed into their little parlor, overwhelming them with feathers and barnyard stench. The boy stood laughing with a hand to his belly as Christophe raced to catch the beast. He'd dropped all the coins and the boy greedily plucked them up.

"Oooh Christophe! Don't let it desecrate in here!"

"Come here… _Lilla demonen! Jag kommer att äta dig nu!_ "*

It jumped on the sofa, plucked at Adelaide's skirts, then the boy chased it too. He stopped laughing when Christophe managed to get ahold of it and wring its neck. It clucked no more.

The chicken dangling limply in one hand, he wiped the other across his sweaty brow. This was a reminder of how desperately he needed to bathe. "You're not getting anything special now, boy," he heaved. "You have your money and we won't be using your master's service again. Now scram!"

With that the boy gripped his hat and scurried out the door, slamming it behind him.

Christophe stood for a moment silently, seeing nothing and breathing in through his nostrils. When he breathed out, his legs gave way and he crumpled to the floor.

"Christophe! Oh my—"

"I'm fine, Maman, I'm fine…" he mumbled. He felt the fabric of the rug roughly against his fingertips. The chicken was greasy in his hand. "I did not sleep well, I'm sorry."

She had bent down as best she could, and before she could reach the ground he got up and dusted off his robe. He patted the wrinkled hand on her cane gently.

"I should say not… You didn't return until near six this morning!"

He looked up at her, shocked and dismayed at such behavior in himself. He blushed crimson. "Oh… Oh Lord… You see I…"

"I know, dear, I know. Now hand mama the chicken and go take a nice long bath."

She had read his mind, reaching up to pat his reddened cheek. He reluctantly passed off the bird, and watched as she hobbled to the kitchen with it. He picked up an errant feather and pulled his fingers over it, dislodging strands and smoothing it up.

"I don't hear running water!"

His breath hitched with his goosebumped skin, and he turned mechanically back to the hall. He ought to clean up the bird feathers. He ought to change his sheets. He ought to just bathe superficially and help Maman with the food. He ought to go find a job.

In the washroom he turned the faucet for hot water, a luxury they were likely to lose when they moved into a less expensive home very soon, and drew a bath.

Christophe raked his fingers along the feather. It was now a sharp pick, divested of its white and black spotted follicles, and he poked at his index finger pad every so often. He stared straight up at the ceiling as he listened to the rhythmic drip of the faucet between his naked legs.

His knobby knees were two pillars of skin peaking above the water, his feet curved with the shape of the tub near the stopped drain. His elbows on either side of the edge, and his head submerged until his ears were swallowed, and his hair floated in tendrils all about his forehead.

And his lips moved. He sang.

So softly he didn't realize it at first, and when he did he continued even though it hurt the spaces in his chest where there were people he missed.

His big toe tapped out the piano for him underwater as he sang in his head voice.

" _J'ai l'air de voir la vie en rose… Mais mon coeur rêve d'autre chose…"_

" _I seem to see life in pink… But my heart dreams of something else…"_

His lips parted and breath was hot around them. He touched them with pruned fingers.

" _Aimer, sincèrement de mon coeur tendre… Celui qui pourrait me comprendre…"_

" _Love, sincerely from my tender heart… Whoever could understand me… "_

He wondered why he was crying. Smooth, effortless tears, joining the water by his ears. He wondered why he dreamed of his voice so clearly when he came home. He remembered visiting him in the cemetery, but that was the last he could recall. When he was asleep he dreamed that Antoine sang his soprano song to him… In a funny French nursery rhyme, the Swedish always having been odd on his tongue no matter how much he taught him. Christophe smiled to remember him blubbering out words and phrases he could never master. He was just too French, even though he admired all Christophe was and came from. How he was the only person to ever call him Kristoffer again after he'd adopted his French name…

If he squinted his eyes hard enough he could recall the exact temperature of the air as he heard that voice again… It had changed somehow… as if in dreams the ghost of Antoine was calling to him from the void. His voice in a rattling cage, unsure how to reach him except from far away. He was so afraid, he knew. He'd heard it in the timbre, in the lowered tone. Cautious, frightened… Christophe was too.

But he was just dreaming things. Just a dream, one that he'd spun from anxiety and misgivings about everything. The only person who'd known he could do things for himself had left him defenseless. How terribly he'd embarrassed himself… how he was remembering such _awful_ things.

" _Aimer, ah, je veux vivement qu'il vienne… Celui qui bercera la peine… De mon âme de parisienne…"_

The body rose from the water, liquid rolling off him and dripping back into the tub. The suds from when he washed were nearly dissolved. He blinked and tipped his head side to side, knocking out water from his ears and forcing his headache to subside. It was dimmer, but still persistent. He needed something to eat.

The water swirled down the drain when he unplugged it. He stepped out and took a towel from the rack, wrapping first his hair and rubbing out the moisture, then passing it over his chest and legs. When he undressed he'd forgotten to bring in new clothes, so he tiptoed to his room with towel around his waist and the carpet soaking in footprint shapes.

He dressed in a gray pair of pants and a clean linen shirt, with suspenders again and a dark blue vest. He wore his normal boots now, not the black shoes from last night. Christophe finally felt more like himself, only he was too painfully aware as he combed out his hair that there were no glasses to perch upon his head.

" _Love, ah, I really want him to come… The one who will cradle the pain… From my Parisian soul…"_

He went to his nightstand and sat on the bed with his journal, opening it to where he left off last night and peering closely at the tear-stained page.

 _I HEARD YOU,_ he'd written in all capital, all sloppy letters. _I HEARD YOU, ANTOINE. WE SANG TOGETHER AGAIN. ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU REAL? A GHOST?_

 _AN ANGEL?_

That was all.

Christophe snapped the book shut, gasping. His chest clenched. He touched his lips.

How _real_ it was!

Because it was! It was not a dream, but a memory he recounted to himself _in_ dreams. He was drunk and stupid, of course, and miserably embarrassed by the whole of the party. Now he recalled dismally how he fainted, and had to be awoken by _Maurice_ holding a full glass of brandy to his lips. How a thousand eyes (twenty pairs is close to a thousand!) were upon him, and how he'd apologized as many times and how Rina refused to leave his side the rest of the night. How he'd never gotten to sing at all, and though they danced and drank and he assimilated into the crowd, he could never stop thinking how two of Rina's brothers were constantly watching him from the far corners of the room.

Christophe pressed his hands to his face, hot from the steamed bath and his quickening heart. He hunched over, and the tears from before turned into an aching sob.

What a fool, _what_ a _fool_!

"Christophe!"

Adelaide called out again. _Again_ in that nasally, old-woman voice that she'd only adopted three years ago. He groaned, throwing his notebook into the nightstand drawer and running from the room in a hurry. He needed to eat. He needed something in his stomach which he could later hurl. If not it would only be acidic bile.

He wiped his face and managed to present a neutral expression upon reaching the parlor. There was an aroma of herbs and singed meat throughout the house, though it was not on their little card table where they were to lunch.

"The chicken's in the oven," she said when she heard him. She certainly had sharp ears still, and he wondered if she'd heard him singing in the bath… or his sobs.

She was turned around, and he noticed she'd pinned up her hair better than he managed earlier, with a sweet butterfly clip that he knew the Professor had given her. A pang started again in his chest at their love.

He touched her shoulders. "And what do we have now?"

"Eggy and toast, to hold us over."

"Coffee?"

"Well…"

He sat and unfolded a napkin into his lap when she uncovered the pot sitting on the table, and the odor of chamomile tea tickled his nostrils.

His brow furrowed. "Maman… tea this early?" Christophe made the sign of the cross and folded his hands together, briefly shutting his eyes and moving his lips before he delved into the greasy toast.

Adelaide sat and rested her cane against the table. It was just for show today, it would seem. Some days she needed it more than others, but the fresh weather must have cleared up her joints.

She folded her hands in her lap, pursing her lips. Her eyes dipped down, and though Christophe was adding (too much) butter to his toast his eyes followed hers to a spot near his plate, where he'd barely glanced. An envelope, beige and thick, with dark black ink.

 _Christophe Daaé._

In sloping, curly handwriting. As distinguished as a Vicomtesse might have, one could say.

His knife clattered to the plate.

"She came early this morning, while you were sleeping. What a pretty girl she is! You didn't tell me how pretty she was!"

"Maman… why didn't you…"

"She told me not to disturb you! I must admit I was shocked she would come here unaccompanied, but she did say her sister-in-law was downstairs in the carriage. I didn't ask questions, though I'm not so sure I believe her. She has a sly look in her eye, I can see why you like her—"

"Ma- _man_!" he growled.

His surrogate mother went silent, her thumbs twiddling before she took to pouring them both cups of tea.

Christophe ripped into the letter, but not frantic enough to ignore that it had been opened and read already. He glanced back up at Maman, who averted her eyes with toast squarely in her mouth.

 _My dear friend,_

 _Please forgive my brothers! Especially Philippe, though I know now that Maurice has not been kind to you either. It is all my fault, really, and though it gives me great pain and embarrassment to do so, I shall try to explain why we acted so strangely last night._

 _You remember that I told you I'd suggested the soireé to Philippe that morning, before I spoke to you? Well it is time for me to confess that the entire party was made up solely for the purpose of seeing you again. I suppose I could have picked a better event to invite you to, and especially one that did not involve any of my family members, but I'm afraid the years have not been kind to your quick-witted friend. It was all I could think of at the time, as my brothers and I had done nothing for the past several weeks but worry our brains about the safety of Maurice._

 _You see, he'd been gone to Berlin for several years. He feigned studying, we now know, but while we believed the lie we assumed he was learning oenology from the best vinter in Western Europe. Our family has a winery in the South that Philippe hopes he will take charge of one day, as he has always been better suited to warmer climates. He doesn't want to lose money, of course, so he sent him to become an expert and to also broaden his horizons. He has been a troublemaker all his life and though I love him dearly and he is (secretly) my favorite brother I, too, worry that it will be his undoing._

 _We hadn't heard from him for several months when Philippe became notified he went missing by his mentor. He immediately booked a ticket to Berlin. He wanted to leave Felix and I behind, but I demanded to join him because I knew how badly Maurice has always resented Philippe, and I knew if we found him I would be able to bring him home. Felix joined us because he sold a horse to someone just outside Berlin (I don't know if you remember last night when I told you he owned a ranch? I will take you there one day, just remind me)._

 _I will not barrage you with the details of our reunion, but suffice to say we found our brother and convinced him to come home with us. I had been nothing but a bundle of nerves the entire time, so worried was I about his safety, and even his very life. I love him so much and I do not know what I'd do without him._

 _When we returned home and I ran into you at the train station, I'm afraid my entire life must have flashed before my eyes, because one minute I am holding onto my lost-and-found brother's arm, and the next I find you have grown into the most wonderful and kind young man. Yes, I knew that you would. And you have no idea how lonely I have been for all these years. Without Maurice, without you my best friend._

 _And now I have told you the truth behind my great lie. I convinced Philippe to throw our brother a party, and he agreed and made it so overwhelmingly garish and 'fashionable' that we frightened you off. I am dropping this letter by your home personally, accompanied by Grace, Felix's wife, who seems rather impartial to it all, thankfully. She also secured your address for me. I wish it could have been the kind of dinner where she plinked away on the keys, and your voice brought tears to everyone's eyes. I know you said that you had a good time, but I so wished to hear you sing again._

 _To make all of this up to you I have written several letters to the chorus master, musical director and others of concern at the Opera Garnier for you join the men's chorus._

 _Our family has patronized the National Opera since before it was housed by Apollo and Pegasus. I am the main sponsor next season. Philippe said it would give me something to do when he assigned it to me (and give him a load off his shoulders, certainly), but I was rather bored with the job. When you spoke of your situation, I found myself newly invigorated with the prospect that I could provide assistance to my oldest friend._

 _An unfortunate accident left a gap in the roster for the men's chorus, and I feel this is the perfect opportunity for you to demonstrate your talents. And… if circumstances be willing, they might still want you for Hamlet after all. They have no star for next season, as Carolus Fonta has departed suddenly for a world tour with Mlle Christina Nilsson (I've found out they are quite smitten with Swedish stars! I was delighted). I've been told by the artistic director they are looking for a fresh voice, so when I whispered last night in my brother's ear that I thought you might be just what they're looking for, it was only in a hopeful suggestion. I did not know he would announce it to the whole room! I still do not know what he was thinking!_

… _But perhaps it is for the best that you did not sing, as I'm told that Hamlet is a role for a baritone and I would not want to embarrass you further. Please forgive me. Forget we ever mentioned all that business with the role and I won't mention it myself._

 _(I still do think you would have made the_ most _excellent Prince of Denmark. If I could sing, I would wish to play your Ophelie. I hope that is not too bold of me to say. I have heard the reigning soprano sing many times, however, and La Carlotta is a true artist. I'm sure you will be delighted to work with her.)_

 _If you feel I have overstepped my boundaries I understand completely and will withdraw any attempt to contact you, although it will pain me greatly. But I could never forgive myself if I allowed you to be forced onto the streets when I am in a position to help, and it's the only thing I can think of to do. I hope you will always consider me your friend, no matter what happens to us or how our lives diverge._

 _Your voice is beyond parallel, Christophe, and I hope I can hear it again one day. Even if it is only on the stage._

 _Yours affectionately,_

 _Rina_

 _P.S. Enclosed is the contact information for M Gabriel, the chorus master, and a token of my gratitude._

Christophe twirled the sprig of lavender that she'd enclosed in his hand as he scanned the letter just one more time. Inexplicably, he was humming Ophelie's mad song, which he'd studied in school and could recite by heart, though she was woefully out of his natural range.

Adelaide crunched. It broke the spell, and he looked up just as she was wiping her mouth.

"Do forgive me for reading it, but she said that I could."

He rolled his eyes, but could not help but smirk. "Oh, I highly doubt that, Maman."

The old lady shrugged and placed her napkin on the plate.

"And the tea?"

"For your voice. You must preserve it from now on."

He knew at once that she was right. Christophe sat up, the tension in his shoulders dissolving slightly. He glanced from the letter, to his cold egg and toast, to the tea which he took up and sipped a gracious amount. Thankfully it had dropped in temperature, for he was desperate to finish it.

He heard her knowing laughter. "You're such a charming and typical boy. You'll do anything for the girl you love." He swallowed, feeling the pressure of her words too acutely, too forcefully. She got up slowly, her joints cracking but agile, and lifted her plate. "Now finish your food."

She popped the toast into his mouth before he could speak. He chewed what he had bitten and removed the rest, then enveloped his standing Maman's waist in his arms.

He felt her old hand upon his dried and washed curls, and everything crashed over him.

"For you Maman. You know you're the only girl I love."

Adelaide patted his head and left him to check on the chicken. He breathed deeply and began to eat again, this time stuffing his face to quiet the hunger in his stomach and heart. He palmed at the letter, tracing a finger over the ink. She must have started this letter a hundred times, her embarrassment peaking out in errant pen marks at the start of sentences. She must have chewed at her nails the way she did when they were young, and smacked her own forehead at her prior stupidities. Oh, how he smiled.

What a ridiculous, pretty girl Rina was. Pretty in face and in spirit. Ridiculous to think it had been nearly ten years ago that they met, and all sorts of things had changed. How he wished he could tell her about Antoine... Would she blush harder than he was now? He passed a hand over her words, then over his heart. He was leaning over with chipmunk cheeks and giggling when Maman came back.

"Oh Christophe," she said, arranging the empty plates and cups upon the tray and taking them up. "I was just thinking—"

"What is it?" he laughed with mouth full, wiping it with his napkin. He stood and took the tray from her, as a good son would. He smiled wider.

"How _proud_ your father would be of you!"

The tray slacked, but only slightly. The smile faltered, but only a bit. The eyes cast to the floor, and, quietly, he replied.

"Yes, Maman. Yes, I'm sure he would."

* * *

 _*When Christophe says "Lilla demonen! Jag kommer att äta dig nu!" it means "Little demon! I will eat you now!"_

 _Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I really enjoyed writing it and I hope the same goes for the chapters to come. I hope you paid close attention to the little details here because many will become important later on!_

 _Please read, share, and review!_

 _Love, Rose_


	7. Head Voice

_AN: It has been well over a month since an update and I'm sorry, but I literally started this chapter about ten times before I was_ satisified _with its direction. I wrote this whole thing in one burst, and now that my muse is back I HOPE I can keep a steady schedule again._

 _10/7/18: If you read the previous chapter before this date, please go back and re-read Chapter Six as it has been updated to reflect future plot developments. Didn't see another way around it! Basically, Christophe is not auditioning for the opera anymore, he just already has the job._

 _Please enjoy this awesome chapter!_

* * *

… _and I think I'm alright for now. Soon, Maman and I will be secure again. I am nervous, but I just have to get through this first day of work, and it will hopefully come easier and more naturally as if I've been working here for months. But I've never had any pretenses of an easy life, and I guess this is just another uphill climb we'll have to face together._

 _I… I wish you were here with us. I know, though she has never said it outright, that she never wanted to speak to you again when she found out. I understand how she feels. I don't think that she knows that I know, however, otherwise I don't know if she'd pamper me and adore me the way she does now. That is, if she knew that I knew and that I didn't care. I didn't want to admit anything when you were alive, and now it's just become routine to deny any of your feelings for—_

"Are you _positive_ it's not there?"

Christophe's pen stopped in its crawl across the page. He hugged his journal closer, pulling his knees upward and to his chest and glancing from the corner of his eye down the hall. From another office, much like the one he waited opposite of, two black-coated men emerged.

They were both generally the same height. One had a shock of red hair, and the other was shiny and bald, but that was as far as he could tell without his glasses. The red-headed man turned to lock the office they exited, while the other took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and sloppily sneezed into it.

"Are you calling me a scoundrel, Debienne?!" the russet man cried, poking his compatriot's chest and sending him into coughing fits. " _I've_ looked everywhere. _You've_ looked everywhere. That ledger is _not_ in our office. _Some_ one must have taken it."

"Or some _thing_ ," Debienne spurtled. "Some _thing_ , Poligny. Don't you think it's time we start believing—"

"Oh fiddlesticks," Poligny chided, tossing his hand and starting in the direction opposite the little bench where the tenor watched intently. "Somebody _corporeal_ is up to something, and you're just too lazy to think of anything…"

And that was the last Christophe could hear of their conversation as they disappeared down the hall, though he could hear Debienne's coughing for a few more seconds after. He turned his gaze to the locked office, where their names were painted in black letters over frosted glass, though they were blurry to his half-blind eyes.

His pen hovered over the page, and he nearly started writing again when the door to Monsieur Gabriel's office flew open.

"Daae," came the high-pitched, rough-shod voice of the chorus master, who beckoned him into his office with a wave of his hand. Christophe quickly closed his journal and capped his pen, shoving them into his bag and absently smoothing down his hair with his other hand. He entered Gabriel's office without looking at him, though he whispered a gentle "Bonjour, monsieur" to compensate for his fluttering heart.

"Take a seat," the chorus master commanded, and Christophe obliged while he went back around his desk. "Do you have the papers I requested?"

The young man's fingers fumbled through his bag, then produced the certificates in question. He paused for a moment, examining the seal of _that place_ where he knew Antoine so well, then handed him the papers.

From his breast pocket, Gabriel retrieved reading spectacles and perched them on his sharp nose as his beady dark eyes perused the papers. It was then that Christophe decided it was safe to look without revealing his how completely terrified he was (though he was sure Gabriel could guess).

Monsieur Gabriel was a smallish man, in stature and in features. He looked quite bird-like, his eyes settled into his narrow face underneath graying eyebrows, and a tiny mouth which wrinkled his skin when he pursed it. His hair was parted down the middle and locked into a curled coif against his temples by what could either be lard or a very strong pomade. And he smelled of cigarettes.

" _L'ecole de la Saint Cecilia_ …" Gabriel muttered, passing his hand along his pointed chin. "Didn't that academy close quite recently?"

Christophe's face burned at this already scathing question. "Yes, quite recently… My benefactor's husband was a distinguished professor there. I completed my coursework under him before he died and graduated three years ago."

Gabriel did not look up from his study. "His name?"

The tenor swallowed. "Valerius."

And Gabriel did look up, a question mark his sole expression. He sat up straighter and smoothed out the papers on his desk. "Ah, yes. I knew him." He took a long, unhurried pause, folding his hands over his slim belly. His little mouth stretched into a strained smile, one where his eyes flew over Christophe's head and settled his worth far, far below. He tried to avert his own blue ones but to no avail. Finally, he said, "I have no doubt, then, that you are an accomplished musician."

Christophe exhaled, smoothing down his dark tie. "Thank you, I—"

"But make no mistake," Gabriel interrupted, his smile still unscrupulous and damaging to Christophe's soul. "I don't appreciate being _commanded_ to hire a tenor I have never heard, nor heard of, before. The Lady de Chagny regards you very highly, and you should consider yourself lucky you are in her favor."

He threaded his hands through his hair, taking a huge and obvious gulp. The way Gabriel spoke of Rina made her sound like a Baroness in a castle on the moors of England, dedicating to her subjects through decrees and proclamations and riding out with the hunt. The ludicrousness of such a thought ought to make him laugh. It didn't.

After a laborious sigh, Gabriel opened a drawer and retrieved from it a stack of paper bound together by a large metal clip. He explained that this was his contract and allowed him to glance at it before he dictated where he should sign. Every few moments Christophe looked up as he wrote his Christian name in several places, and saw that Gabriel's brows furrowed at the sight of it.

When he was finished the chorus master took it back and signed it himself. Then, satisfied, he returned it to the drawer and resumed his pensive pose with hands folded over.

"We are already halfway through our season, with five pieces being performed intermittently from now until mid-July. Then there is a month-long performance break while we ready the newest productions and rehearse the repertoire. We are currently performing _Les Huguenots_ , _Faust_ , _Così fan tutte_ and _Samson et Dalila_ , with _La sylphide_ as our ballet of the moment. We will continue _Faust_ in the fall, and we open next season with a new production of Thomas' _Hamlet_."

Gabriel did not pause just to take a breath, but to examine the reaction Christophe would give to this wealth of information. He said nothing, only gravely nodding. The chorus master gave a huff, which resembled a scoff.

"You will perform in _Les Huguenots_ at the end of next week. I assume you are familiar with the score and will not need very much time to memorize the material, correct?"

Christophe sat forward and fiddled with the leather clasp on his bag. "Y-yes, I've studied Meyerbeer in depth and could—"

"Your current contract is only until the end of this season. You will perform in the operas I have mentioned, and if — _only if_ — you prove yourself by the final performance of _Cos_ _ **ì**_ in July your contract will be extended for the entirety of next season, and you will receive a raise in salary." Gabriel took his hands from his stomach and anchored them on the desk, leaning far over them and smoothing his lips into a thin, bitter line. "Do I make myself perfectly clear, _Daae_?"

His voice box must have caved in on itself, for he could only croak out a noise that sounded akin to a toad. A shadow had appeared behind Gabriel in the folds of the curtain framing his office as he spoke, though after a dismal, stock-still moment of fright it was gone. He blinked Gabriel back into focus, who, noticing his preoccupation with the drapery, looked behind him with a grimace.

"Ah, y-yes, that's clear! Thank you so much for this opportunity, Monsieur Gabriel," Christophe said quickly after finding his voice. He stood and held out his hand, though it took an eternity for Gabriel to do the same.

"Euh… Do not thank me," he said distractedly as he stood. "Thank your Vicomtesse… She's the reason most of our operas this season are in French, anyway." He rolled his eyes most disrespectfully but nonetheless shook his hand. "I will see you at rehearsal in one hour," he added after, sorting through stacks of papers on his desk in search of one in particular. "Here is the rehearsal schedule for the next two weeks. I expect you to be at every single one on time and prepared."

Christophe gratefully took the page, his enthusiasm returning in a warm smile. "Yes, thank you. And Monsieur Gabriel I was wondering if you could show me—"

"And here is the tenor score of _Les Huguenots_. You may borrow it until you acquire your own copy."

"Thank you, I believe I have one at home but this will do well for today. Now if you could just tell me—"

"You may go, Daae. Close the door on your way out."

The score was heavy in his hands, now. He put it in his bag behind his journal and threaded it over his shoulder, clutching the strap tightly and the rehearsal schedule to his chest. Monsieur Gabriel was already preoccupied with another musical score on his desk, what looked like _Hamlet_ , in fact. Christophe's face fell, and he left the chorus master to his work.

* * *

He had wanted Gabriel to show him around the opera house. Finding his way to the offices had been hard enough, and he was glad he'd left home earlier than Maman thought he should. Her trust in him and the people who now employed him was sweet… and woefully undeserved. It was clear, _oh so clear_ , what they thought of him, and now it was up to him to determine the course of his future.

Unless they had already decided that this short contract, this little _trial period_ was all they would give him. Christophe slumped against the wall outside Gabriel's office, quaking in his roughly scuffed shoes. He plastered his palm against his sweaty forehead and sighed. His eyes drilled a hole into the floor.

He had an hour until rehearsal to remember all he could of Meyerbeer's score, _and_ find his way to — he looked at the schedule, which rattled unsteadily in his hand — practice room B without having been shown around. Not to mention he was hungry for a scrap of something, bread, anything.

A twinkling sounded in the distance. No, not twinkling… laughter. Giddy, schoolgirl laughter, and then a manic shriek. Of delight or terror, he could not place without seeing the girl who made it. Christophe's eyes narrowed and followed the sound, and down the hall, he saw an open door. Beyond it, an array of white and peach passed by in the breezeway, and his feet moved toward them of their own accord.

When he came into the light of the next space, he realized he'd somehow found his way to the crossover. The giggling had intensified, and he saw it belonged to a gaggle of tutus and corsets twirling and falling against each other. They were huddled behind a set piece of an Italian Villa (no doubt from _Così_ ).

A hush was falling over them just as he reached their circle. He stood much taller and could see over their bundles of curls and ribbons to the person at the center, who by all accounts was _not_ the kind of face he expected ballerinas to be enthralled by.

Nonetheless, when this homely, ill-washed and paint-stained monsieur began to speak, even Christophe could not tear himself away.

"... He walks among the rafters during performances. He is looking down your frocks, ladies!" and they gave a small yelp and commotion before the chortling stagehand continued. "Hehehe… yes, he's got a wandering eye. He's a gentleman, after all! A gentleman in dress clothes, hanging off his sallow, boney frame. You've seen his eyes, haven't you?"

He craned his neck closer to the dancer at his left, bulging his own dull brown eyes in an entreaty toward her. The lily-white neck of the girl blushed scarlet.

"You could mistake them for the old gaslight once upon a time. They glowed just like it. You could have been standing in the light of the lamps and he could be very near to you, covered by shadow! Has he breathed down _your_ neck?!"

He quickly pointed at the girl to his right, who nearly fainted into her friend's arm.

"Tell us about his nose!" a blonde girl piped up. A second later she covered her betraying mouth with both hands, squinting at the other girls and shuddering.

"Ha!" The man stood, slapping both knees with his hands and grinning toothily. "He hasn't got one! Just a gaping hole where it ought to be!"

The girls screamed, beginning to scatter. The man waved his cap in the air and bellowed with laughter. "He sold it to the devil for immortality! Satan's got a necklace of noses dangling 'round his neck!" Just then, the man's crazy eye caught him, and Christophe blinked his gaze away.

His body was thrumming with exhilaration. He tried to hide his smile, but it was no use when he started giggling. The girls had mostly dissipated, though two had stayed to entreat the stagehand for more information, their little palms folded as if in prayer.

And another one stood beside him. He glanced at her and her tapping silk-wrapped foot and realized she hadn't screamed or spoken a word to any of her friends. Her arms were crossed and her brow serious, and after a moment's contemplation, she scoffed. "Buquet ought to hold his tongue," she murmured before wandering off.

He looked between the man still weaving his tale and the ballerinas, then blindly followed the solo dancer as she crossed in front of the set piece.

"Hey, w-wait," he said and touched her shoulder where it was covered by a threadbare Indian shawl. She flinched back when she turned to face him. Christophe looked at his offending hand and blushed. "W-why do you say that?"

Her dark eyebrow raised upon her light bronze skin. "The Opera Ghost doesn't like people speaking ill of him. Buquet will get what he deserves." She shrugged as she pulled her shawl tighter around her. "And besides… The Ghost doesn't like looking down blouses anymore than Buquet likes drinking anything other than gin."

Traces of an accent colored her words warm oranges and reds. She resumed her course through the crossover, and Christophe haphazardly followed. "Is that who he was talking about?"

" _Naturalmenti, monsieur_ ," she remarked over her shoulder.

Christophe laughed. "But you don't really believe that stuff, do you? I mean… Ghosts aren't real." As he said this he hated his own hypocrisy, for believing only a week ago that Antoine had sung to him from beyond the grave.

He was walking beside her before she stopped. Facing him, she tilted her head and regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. "I take it you are new here, Monsieur…"

"Daaé, euh, Christophe Daaé," he replied, rocking on the balls of his heels and giving an electric smile.

The dancer rolled her eyes, irises as dark as her hair. "I didn't ask for your name." An awkward silence passed between them. "But!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together before extending her right and taking his up in a firm and masculine shake. Finally, it would seem she was capable of smiling. "I might as well offer mine. I am Juanita Margit Villanueva Giry… The girls and my mother call me Meg."

Christophe's body vibrated with her fervent handshake. " _Trevligt att träffas._ My name is actually Kristoffer Josef Daae, and I come from Sweden."

Her eyebrow quirked up again, and she shrugged incredulously. "So?"

His own eyebrows furrowed as she let go of his hand and they resumed walking. "I… I was wondering if you could show me around? It's my first day here and I'm a little lost and..."

They were reaching the other side of the stage now. Workmen sounds from backstage were dissipating, replaced by distant sounds of violins and cellos tuning in a far-off compartment of the opera's labyrinth. There were several other set pieces from the Italian Villa here, and other various scenes, but now they exited from behind the scrim and found themselves on the main stage, looking out into the auditorium.

The ghostlight briefly blinded him. It was a brighter flame than he was used to, and he squinted.

"It's the new electricity," Meg said with a pat to his arm. "You'll get used to it."

And he did after a moment. Colors returned. Deep, rich colors all around him. Ones he never thought he'd see up close, and it was only then that it hit him: he would be drinking in red and gold _every single night_ from now on.

The effect of seeing the house for the first time was a kind of paralysis, even though it was sufficiently blurry without his glasses. Meg wanted to continue their path while he could only stand with joints locked into place. They stood off-center, but relatively downstage and his eyes craning upwards found a ceiling drawn from the heavens, its sun the crystal chandelier encircled by visions of angels. His sight floated down in a spiral, examining the boxes that lined the periphery, stacked together at an angle so that all had a wide view of the stage. Where he stood. Where he would stand, night after night. _Singing._

"Monsieur Daae," Meg said at his side, though he was barely conscious of her presence.

" _Ja…_ " he muttered.

He felt something slipping away from him, and for the moment he stood content looking deeply and thoughtfully at all he could take in. He was barely aware that the girl next to him read the details of his schedule.

His eyes traveled over the seats and to the stalls, then returned to the boxes nearest the stage. The grandest box was stage right, a symphony in gold and gaping muses. " _Le loge de l'Empereur…_ " he whispered, knowing this to be true even though he was as ignorant of Second Empire architecture as he was of women or various types of wine. Christophe daydreamed how it would look to see the dead emperor, and his beautiful exiled wife leaning back into the shadows of their box. Perhaps her silken gloved hand holding a set of golden opera glasses just shy of her nose, so that she might glimpse the sweat pouring off the bronzed skin of the danseur whose curves she was quietly memorizing.

Christophe glanced to the left of that box and found two glowing eyes piercing him through the darkness.

In a blinking moment, they were gone. Or, rather, they were gaslight again, which he saw in what he thought looked like a mirror reflecting the area just beyond his sightlines in the box.

Christophe shuddered and returned his attention to the dark-haired girl in the second position examining his schedule.

"I can show you where all these rooms are so you won't have to worry later." She shoved the sheet back into his hands and began to bound off into the wings again, without waiting for him to follow.

But he did, stammering his gratitude and with a small, cautious glance behind him.

* * *

" _Finalmente_ , practice room B," Meg said with a grand gesture to said room's label. Beyond the door, he heard the chorus warming up, along with shouting orders from Monsieur Gabriel. Christophe gulped.

"Aren't you going to go in?" she continued as she wound the ends of her shawl into her fists and anchored them on the jutting fabric of her bodice's hips. "For a tenor, you're certainly skittish."

"I… I have never sung in a company before."

Meg made a childish face and laughed. "There's nothing to it!" she exclaimed, pulling loose her braided hair to redo its plait. "Nobody's really going to notice you. That's the good thing about being in the back of the line — if you mess up only the ballet master notices. Or in your case…"

" _If I hear ONE more word resembling GHOST or SKELETON or DEATH'S HEAD, you will be doing nothing but scales for the next three rehearsals!"_

They both creased their brows. "... Signor Gabriel. But don't worry. Don't worry your pretty little head."

Meg smiled as she re-fastened her hair ribbon, and for a moment Christophe considered that his situation could be worse. He could have gone the entire day lost, and without making a friend. The little Spanish girl gave him a decently tight hug then opened the door for him, practically pushing him across the threshold.

"Good luck, _Christi_ ," was the last thing he heard her say before he was preoccupied with the eyes narrowing on him in the room.

"Ah," Gabriel began, standing at the piano and gesturing him in further, while the rest of the company took their seats. "Here we have the tenor to replace Monsieur Bourbon. Ladies and gentlemen, Monsieur Christophe Dane—"

" _Daae_ ," he corrected with a certain ferocity of character. He stepped forward and regarded the people who nodded to him, as well as those who looked down from tilted noses and hoisted scores. There were about forty in all, equally men and women, the two genders positioned on either side of the piano. The men were in their shirtsleeves and the women wore no hats or jackets, those articles slung over the backs of chairs casually. He continued, pulling his confidence from an unknown depth. "I am pleased to meet you all, and I'm looking forward to working with you."

Christophe paused, though he was not sure why. Was he expecting them to applaud? Or some brave soul to come forward and welcome the stranger into their midst? No, there was nothing but idle chatter and pointed looks at his shoes and his ill-fitting jacket.

"From the top of act three, everyone."

The company stood. Gabriel went back to the piano and began the opening bars of the passage, and Christophe scrambled to find a seat. He first went to the back of his section, Meg's words still ringing in his ear. Every seat was, however, taken up by a man who made certain he knew that he would _not_ find one there. He worked his way around, pulling out the score Gabriel had given him all the while, until he found a single empty chair quite near to the piano, in the very front row.

He quickly stuffed his bag between the legs underneath and opened his score. He started to ask the man next to him for the page on which he could find the "top of act three," but he was interrupted by the blaring of the first note coming from forty different throats.

Christophe swallowed and side-eyed the man's score, then hurried through the pages until he found it. The music was coming back to him as they sang, which he was thankful for. It was _certainly_ never Antoine's favorite type of composition, these _grand opéras_ , of which _Les Huguenots_ was the most famous. It was only appropriate, then, that his first dive into a career in music should be in the style his dearest friend had once called "popular trash."

The thought of him while he sang caused him to smile, which was a daring thing to do while one was enunciating correctly. Especially with the chorus master a mere meter away from his face.

The piano silenced, as did the voices with it. "Is there something funny, Monsieur _Daae_?" Gabriel ended mockingly, and a host of voices flurried in his ear.

"N-no, I… I was just glad that I did remember Meyerbeer's score, after all, Monsieur."

His signature, insidious smile spread across his features once more. "Well, then…" he began, standing and taking the short distance to stare directly into Christophe's eyes. Well, as best as he could, for he was several inches shorter than the tenor.

His hands folded behind his back, Monsieur Gabriel glanced to the women, then to the men in his section. Christophe's apprehension grew, until at last, he was thrown into a den of foaming wolves.

"Have a seat everyone. Monsieur Daae is going to sing."

He felt the chorus shuffling and gossiping, but all he could focus on was a pinprick of dried plaster on the wall opposite the group. His knees buckled.

"Close your score, Monsieur Daae."

 _Monsieur Daae, Monsieur Daae… hasn't he anything better to call me? Like my given name?_ Christophe was quietly screaming in his mind, his score huddled to his chest before he thought it better to set it on his seat so that he could stand straight. It was a futile effort, however, as no matter how hard he tried he could not rotate his shoulders to align with his neck.

Gabriel began the opening passage again, and again Christophe stared closely at that plaster.

Somehow, someway, what came out of his throat was the correct lyrics of " _C'est le jour de dimanche,"_ but he was not prepared to sing a solo he had not practiced, which followed shortly after the men's entrance. Someone near to him had been singing it before.

He sounded juvenile. Woefully uneven. Trying too hard to impress, and failing to hit the lower notes which were not usually required of him. Still, it was remarkable how well he remembered the score, as though he'd been singing it unconsciously for years.

And then, it happened.

In a ridiculous fit of terror and forgetfulness, he lapsed into his head voice and sang the women's part. Not a moment later, the entire room burst into raucous laughter.

Christophe sat quickly, shutting himself up and covering his burning mouth. He lifted up again to retrieve his score and clutched it close.

Monsieur Gabriel had tears in his eyes from his own laughter. "There, now, haven't we _all_ had our fun now? Let's get back to work ladies and gentlemen… _And_ those who are _undecided,_ " he quipped in Christophe's shrinking direction. The room erupted once more until the chorus master returned to the top of the act and everyone stood to show him how it was _really_ done.

Christophe's own tears stayed put, right along his waterline. He stood late, but nonetheless opened his score and sang again.

* * *

Again and again, for an hour and a half.

No one looked at him again, but they all talked about him. Any time Gabriel paused to correct a passage, or to turn to a new one, or even to make a joke which he was clearly capable of with those _other than Christophe…_ they whispered obscenities behind his back, and though he resisted, he heard every single one.

"He's the Vicomtesse's little dish—"

"She wants him for _Hamlet_. I mean, can you imagine?!"

"Bloody bastard… didn't even have to audition—"

"Oh, I _know_. And doesn't he sound just _awful_!"

"Like a toad! A toad with its balls snipped—"

"Toads don't have balls, you _dolt_. He's a little castrated pussycat—"

"You sure he isn't a woman? Looks like a pretty bitch to me…"

"He's Swedish! How utterly vulgar…"

"Probably a virgin—"

"Probably fucking his patron—"

"Probably—"

" _Probably—"_

"Dismissed."

Christophe lit out of the practice room as a horse would sprint over a track. As the door swung shut, he heard the viperous voice of a woman hiss, "See you tomorrow, _Christine_!" He couldn't have been _more_ crimson.

There was ensuing laughter, oh he knew there would be. At the moment, however, absolutely nothing could possibly matter.

He ran down the halls, weaving in and out of those who passed him by, including Meg who was covered in perspiration and a loosened braid once more. "Hey, _Christi_ —"

" _Don't_ call me that!" he rounded on her, and though his face was immediately apologetic, he waved her away from him and continued on.

He dove in and out of shadows, blindly wondering if he could find his way out of this hellish landscape. What was once miraculous and exciting had dispelled into his ruin. Christophe wandered, with only the roughest of ideas as to where he fled.

He eventually found himself in a kind of forest of names, doors labeled distinctly with stars painted onto them. He assumed these must be the _prima_ dressing rooms. He heard no commotion coming from any of them and guessed that the leads had the day off.

He wrenched his head left and right, looking for an innocuous room in which he might hide. At the end of the hall, there was a door whose words were painted over, quite recently in fact. You could still see the letters underneath, which spelled the name "Carolus Fonta."

Christophe vaguely recalled that name from Rina's letter. Since it was painted over, he assumed it would be empty and devoid of belongings. He tried the knob, and when it gave way he swung himself inside the black room, desperately, hopelessly. And, finally, his legs gave out.

The boy sank to his knees and broke his silence. The sob rang out into the dressing room, echoing off of darkened walls back to him. He sounded _so goddamned pathetic_ , didn't he? He really was a girl, still tied to his surrogate mother's apron by a thread around his pinky. Still dreaming about the handsome man who had long since left him alone… If he hadn't been daydreaming about Antoine, surely he could have managed to get through the rehearsal unscathed?

He sniffed and scrambled to his feet, flinging his bag down and fumbling over whatever furniture he came in contact with. His hands found a gas lamp upon the dressing table, and he turned the knob gently to the right. The flame flickered on, and he surveyed his surroundings. There was a chaise lounge flat against the opposite wall, a divider at one end to facilitate costume changes and an empty rack where they would be stored at the other. At one corner of the room, there was an upright piano with melted candles fixed in their holders, dusty in their abandonment. Christophe stood at the dressing table, which was bare save for compartments to store makeup, brushes, and accessories. There was a small mirror on this table to apply grease paint and khol, but it was the floor-length mirror which caught his attention.

It reflected the entire room back at him. It was divided into four sections, each one lined in brassy metal. Black varnish created a soft vignette around every reflection.

He approached the mirror. Blond hair disheveled, tie nearly undone, eyes red and pulsing with tears… he openly wept.

Had this been the first time he'd done so since Antoine's death? He'd cried minimally for his father. He had shed several, angry tears at the graveyard that one night, he was certain. Tears, they come and go. They can appear because someone pinched you, or if there's a strong onion smell as you pass by the marketplace.

When one's entire body shifts so that a soul passes through the eyes… That is truly weeping.

His hands cupped his face, and he stepped back. No… No, he couldn't do this. He couldn't keep pretending that he was capable, that he could provide for the woman who would _surely hate him should she_ —

Christophe dropped to the floor by his bag, ripping through its contents until he produced his journal. He flipped through page after page — it was nearly full up, of dreams and of hopes and of secret confessions he could hardly admit to himself. And the name, at the top of every entry, the voice of his conscience and of his desires… _Antoine_.

"Dammit…" he whispered. Swallowing hard, he leaned over the notebook and took several pages in either hand. He pulled them taught, up to his chest and felt the tiniest tear in its fibers. He sighed and relaxed his grip.

But not his heart. His eyes wandered to the score protruding from his bag. He took the music and left the journal, finding himself at the seat of the piano. After opening it to the top of act three, he lifted the lid and smoothed his hand over the keys. Cool to the touch. He pressed one, humming the note before moving to another.

Christophe stretched his hands over the ivory and played what he saw. The entrance was brash, all pomp and circumstance. He passed over the men's introduction, and instead recited the solo.

He was sharp. His hands seized, and he played again.

Again, he was sharp. He groaned, slamming elbows onto the keys and burying his face in his hands.

"What do I do, Antoine…?" he half-whispered, his tongue caressing the back of his teeth. "What should I do…?"

"For starters, start asking _yourself_ what you should do _._ And sing in your _goddamn range_ , why don't you? You sound like an utter _toad_!"

Christophe gasped, whipping around on the bench with eyes swiveling madly.

 _There was no one in the room with him._

* * *

 _For reference, I completely made up the school that Christophe went to. Les Huguenots is a real opera though and it was very popular in the 19th century. I am kind of making up the layout of the opera house as I go along, as there's only so much maps and floorplans can do! I also don't know what rehearsals or social climates were like in the opera at this time, so let's just say if anything is inaccurate in that realm it's artistic license._

 _Meg Giry, however, is Romani (from Spain) and if I ever get anything wrong about her character, PLEASE let me know as I will be happy to fix it! I do not want to make any errors with another ethnicity than my own, but I feel strongly that it's important Meg is Romani as there is clear evidence in the book that this is so. She has always lived in Paris with her mother so her attitudes may be slightly different, but I could definitely use help. Same goes for whenever I am writing the Persian! I definitely don't want to be culturally insensitive with regards to my POC characters, so please let me know if you ever see any_ inaccuracies _there!_

 _Until next time (hopefully next Sunday)!_

 _Read and review!_

 _Rose_


	8. Light of the Moon

_There was no one in the room with him._

And yet he was not dreaming. Christophe _heard_ the voice with his own two ears, though he stuffed both index fingers inside them to clean out the delusional canals. Just to be _sure_.

"Stop that! For God's sake, you're going to burst your eardrums."

Christophe dropped straight out of his seat, knocking the tops of his knees against the underside of the piano and toppling the bench to the floor. A smooth, bellowing laugh drifted through the room.

"Th-that, that's not funny!" he defended. This only ignited on the voice's humor.

" _Ah, aha…_ it is _always_ funny, little Maestro," it teased. Christophe's face reddened again. Only this time he would be damned if he let a _disembodied voice_ continue to embarrass him.

He staggered to the center of the room and dusted himself off. "Look here!" He jabbed the air with his pointer in the direction of the divider, as he couldn't imagine it coming from anywhere else. "You come out and face me right now! I-I'm warning you!"

The laughter slowed but persisted. Christophe approached the folding panels with arms raised defensively. When he knocked it to the side, he jumped back lest he be attacked by the eavesdropper.

The space between the divider and wall was empty.

The laughter got louder, and came from behind him. With a sharp breath and running start he bolted through the room where he thought he might corner the intruder and scare him himself with a (pathetic) little roar. He tripped on the overturned bench and caught himself on piano with a key-smash. His failure did nothing but to assure him that he was still perfectly alone and being taunted by what was either his imagination or bonafide _ghoul_.

 _The laughter._ This time it it sounded right beside him, his ear tickling with its sweet and sour honey. He swiped at it, and it bounced over to the other ear, and he knew this game could not be won by normal means. His face still red and blotchy, Christophe felt his whole body coil with a mixture of fear and dread. But if he fled the room, then how low would his courage sink? Would it leave him completely and sail off to Timbuktu?

No, no! He couldn't let that happen! Not again, not for the second (arguably third) time that day.

So, what would his strategy be now? He thought for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut and resisting the urge to slam his fists down upon the keys.

He nearly gasped when it came to him, though he remained steady. Christophe neutralized himself, standing straight and adjusting his waistcoat. Then, very calmly, he righted the bench and sat upon it. The voice was still chortling, so he positioned his feet and hands in the correct positions.

His fingers went to work. They dropped like heavy dew from a rain soaked leaflet, inching their way along the keyboard until the melody was joined by the soft, vibrating hum of Christophe's voice.

 _"Au clair de la lune…_

 _Mon ami Pierrot_

 _Prête-moi ta plume_

 _Pour écrire un mot."_

The voice was not laughing now. It was a simple child's song, one taught to him when he was just learning to speak French. Back then, he had been clumsy with the words, always giving a hard stop to the ending consonants. That was hardly the case now. From childhood rhyme to lovesong for the moon... In the rest between phrases, Christophe hoped his small smile was not betraying him.

 _"Ma chandelle est morte,_

 _Je n'ai plus de feu._

 _Ouvre-moi ta porte_

 _Pour l'amour de Dieu."_

He could feel it: the chill coming across his nape, underneath his shirt collar and over his spine. His swallow dipped his adam's apple down as the prickling moved up, and his scalp was alight with the feeling that the voice was breathing down his neck.

This was a _dangerous_ game, it would seem. But he kept playing it, and playing it. A buried urge had dug itself up, and he was a hypnotized slave to it. The second and third verses came and went, and he knew instinctively that the voice was listening, that it had not vanished. Its presence was like fire burning underneath the carpet, invisible behind these walls.

 _"Au clair de la lune,_

 _On n'y voit qu'un peu._

 _On chercha la plume,_

 _On chercha du feu."_

 _En cherchant d'la sorte—_

They both stopped short when Christophe heard the baritone croon join his. For the moment they were waiting at an impasse, his fingers raised above the keys and the voice silenced. By all accounts he should understand this to be the end of their little game. If he was another man, he'd be coming to his senses now and running out screaming.

But Christophe was not that man, and he was invariably curious and terrified all at once. Call it a matter of the sublime, the meaning of which was secreted to him in the dim halls of a now shuttered school and whispered over biscuits and coffee.

And he could hear that voice in the back of his mind, ringing out clear and crisp. Baritone... it blended so well with Christophe's that it could have been imagined. He knew it was not. He could still feel it in all his crevices. Throughout his neck and his elbows, under his chin and between his… He closed his eyes and breathed it in, and then he started the phrase again.

 _En cherchant d'la sorte_

 _Je n'sais c'qu'on trouva;_

 _Mais je sais qu'la porte_

 _Sur eux se ferma_

He let the voice sing the last phrase himself. Yes, it was a male voice. There was never any doubt, though for the taunts and chides he had half-heartedly ascribed its gender to be "ghost." But there was no mistaking that voice anymore.

Christophe drew his breath sharply, then turned around as he exclaimed:

"Antoine?"

Just like that, the tension snapped and his presence dissolved into thin air. The room was stale again, as though no one had entered it in years.

"Antoine!" he shouted, running to the center and spinning as he repeated it, over and over. "Please, don't go! Not again…"

Christophe slacked against the back of the door, but the door wasn't having it. Instead, his body thrust forward, and he staggered back toward the piano to the piano. Light spilled in from the hall and illuminated the mess he'd made of the room, which a nasally and Germanic accented voice scolded.

"What are you doing? Get out, get out of here!"

It was an ancient gentleman who'd opened the door, one hunched over and looking as if death followed him close behind. He gesticulated wildly at Christophe to come out, so he quickly snatched the open score from the music desk and shoved it back into his bag. As a courtesy he went to turn off the gas lamp, but apparently this was wasting time. "Hurry, hurry up!" the man growled.

"I-I'm sorry, it was open and I wanted to practice—"

For an old man, he was surprisingly strong. When Christophe was close enough he gripped him by the arm and hurled him out of the room, slamming the door shut only when he'd confirmed nothing else was amiss inside. Christophe rubbed his arms as he watched dewy-eyed. A chatelaine hung from his dingy navy brocade waistcoat, and from it he inserted a silver plated key with the likeness of a skeleton. For added emphasis he looked pointedly at Christophe as he turned the locked knob, which did not budge.

"W-who are you?" the boy asked. But the man abandoned him with a rough shake of his head and a flinging of exasperated hands. Before he could call after him, he disappeared through another door and was gone.

Well… now he was truly alone, trying to grasp at the straws that might illuminate something. _Anything_. Christophe clutched his bag to his chest. He looked back at the locked door, swallowing down his embarrassment and trying to feel relieved. If he thought about it, well, he wouldn't be going back in again, right? In a way, it was a blessing this old man threw him out. It was a _sign_.

He buried his head in his hands, scrubbed and scrubbed at his eyes. Oh, it was such a cruel joke. Being taunted by a restless spirit, then beauty dangled between his ears… oh it was too much. A man could go insane this way…

It _had_ to be a stress-induced fever dream. Yes, that was it. Stress. His heart had barely calmed down from the events of rehearsal ( _"Min Gud, wasn't that barely a half hour ago?!"_ ), and thus from the depths of his imagination had caused, yet again, a delusional mentality ready to believe that any little sound could be the resurrected ghost of his deceased—

A door slammed against its frame. The old man appeared again, this time with vengeance painted on his brow, and a broom in his hand. It was only now that Christophe (ever observant Christophe), noticed the black apron tied snugly around the man's waist. "What are you still doing here?" he shouted. "Get out! You don't belong!"

Quickly, quickly Christophe! He situated his bag upon his shoulder and raced down the hall. He pleaded with apologies, but felt the swift _smack_ of a broom at the back of his knees. His head dipped down further, and he began a sprint down the next hall. The echoing remonstrations of the man, this porter or steward or janitor, whoever he was, licked at his heels until he was finally backstage where he belonged.

A thousand workmen had swarmed into place since he'd left it. Hammers falling, metal bending, the smell of wet paint and sawdust. He wove in and out of gruffly besmirched men in overalls and dull linen shirts carrying beams, boxes and tools, with no destination clear or in sight. _He had to get out of here._

"Does anybody have a map?" he said with nervous laughter, hands reaching for a friend. Dismissed by everyone. He was enfolded into a group of several stiff-faced men all flowing in the same direction. He couldn't see that far beyond their shoulders without his glasses — _God where the hell were they?_ — but he knew darkness was closing in on him. There were steps going down. He caught himself on the back of the man in front of him, who glared at him under his meaty arm, before he managed to find his footing. And they soon exited into a dim space of levers, gears, and pipes all distorted and made grotesque by bouncing shadows.

The sound was like clanging in a hollow shell, a reverberated clash between sharp objects, muddled with deep laughter and angry cursing. It made him ache.

 _"Where is the exit?"_ he entreated, though his voice was drowned out in the cacophony. Those men who had practically carried him down here ignored him, and he wondered if they might be deaf from the constant noise of their job. His pulse was pounding. He felt for a door, the stairwell—

"- - -"

A set of words he didn't understand, whispered like a charmer coiling around his waist. And a real hand, shooting out from the darkness and clutching his arm, sent him into a panic. He tried to push off the foreign limb, but it dragged him, up the steps over which he tripped again.

 _"H-hallå! Sluta!"_ He clawed at the hand on his arm. _"Släpp mig!"*_

The grip was sufficient enough to nearly rotate his shoulder out of its socket. Even when they were above, in a hallway he recognized, the hand did not slack. He was dimly aware of happy laughter and noise surrounding them, and the dark green coat which guided him through the opera house. He was too incensed and frightened. Couldn't think straight. Delirious and sobbing.

It was right then that he decided to _quit and never step foot inside this house again._

A burst of crisp air hit his clammy skin, and he shuddered. Though it was hardly what you could call bright, the natural light of late afternoon burned his raw eyes. He was escorted away from the entrance to an alcove near a grating. It was only then that the mysterious hand let him loose and he fell back against the smooth cream colored stones of the building.

"Get a hold of yourself," the voice from before spoke in French now, and Christophe rubbed at his tear-streaked face to see who he was talking to.

It was the stranger from before! The one who he'd bumped into the day he returned from Sweden, still adorned with green coat and his odd fur hat. His face was as neutral now as it had been then, but he noticed an emotion in his deeply set jade eyes that he could not identify.

That gaze seemed to adjust the bones in Christophe's body so that it stood straighter and calmer. He took a deep breath and clasped his hands to either side of his neck, then closed his eyes and whispered an apologetic "thank you."

"Perhaps these would be of use to you in the future," said the man, and Christophe was shocked when he reached into his coat and retrieved the last thing he expected: his very own glasses!

He took them with wonderment, slipping them on to make sure of the fact that yes, they were indeed his. Now he could see the man's darkly tanned face _and_ the bustling street behind him! "Where in the world did you find these?!"

A smile graced the thin, mustachioed lips of his rescuer. "I'm afraid you have a habit of running into me. I was… just walking home from a meeting with a friend when a blond boy in dress clothes crashed into me and fled without his spectacles."

Now Christophe was even more embarrassed. But the man — _the handsome foreign gentleman who had a tongue like honey and spice_ — seemed totally sympathetic and even laughed agreeably, until Christophe was gay enough to join him.

"I suppose after the third time I should introduce myself," he said while wiping a stray tear. He held out his hand. "My name is Christophe."

The stranger looked at the outstretched hand and hesitated. But only for a second, and then he was shaking Christophe's hand gladly. He noted how rough and calloused his fingers were, and they scratched his skin a bit. For a moment, Christophe waited for a reciprocation of his introduction, but none came. The man merely nodded politely.

"Thank you for… showing me the exit," Christophe added nervously. "It only just occurs to me how foolish I must have looked."

The man crossed his arms. "The house is a mask, hiding terrible secrets. And you have stumbled upon one of the worst: it is just like the rest of Paris."

Christophe glanced up at the parapets. "I realize that now. I had no expectations, but…" As he said this, a large bird flew overhead and past the gables above them, and disappeared to the roof. "Somehow it still disappoints."

When he turned back, the mysterious man was gone.

He left the wall and looked for him in the street, then behind him at the nooks and crannies of the great building. Nary a soft gray fur cap in sight.

Christophe quietly whistled and ruffled his own hair a bit. It was like waking up from a long dream, and he was only just starting to get feeling back into his limbs. His bag saddled to his side, and his glasses finally — _finally_ — allowing him to see, he only had one goal in mind: to journey home.

He started off down _le Rue Scribe_ and listened intently to the lullabies in his mind.

* * *

The Persian adjusted his dark brocade tie around his throat. The hand stayed, as he waited for a familiar voice to descend upon him from the darkness. It didn't take long before he heard the intoxicating tones to which he'd long trained himself not to respond.

" _Daroga…_ " his waspish breath staggered out. "You didn't tell him your name."

The voice materialized into a man before his very eyes. He appeared out of the darkness of the alcove, and he wondered not for the first time how this spectre managed to hide that stark white hair so well in the shadows. Perhaps it was the hat brim pulled low over his forehead, or his cloak abundant in obsidian colored fabric, hiding beneath it his outlandish frame.

It was still strange to see the white mask. The last time he'd regularly visited this old fiend, he had been alternating between a black veiled _barbe_ and a set of false appendages. A nose, a mustache and beard… It hardly hid his entire _grotesquerie_ , but it had always minimized the shock in its viewer.

"It wasn't his to know. I think you of all people can understand why…"

He scoffed. When the _Ahriman**_ removed his hat his visage had the likeness of the moon shining in a dimming sky. He spoke as he imagined the moon spoke, calm and intrepid. The content of his words had the sharp explosion of a meteorite.

"Why the devil didn't you drag him out of the understage sooner?"

Beneath his cloak the masked man's arms shifted, and from a slit sliding open he saw the edges of a tattered book being palmed by leather gloved hands. It disappeared almost as soon as seen by the Daroga. His gaze returned to the golden eyes which bore into him accusingly. The blood red of his left eye seemed darker that day.

"I was asked to return his glasses, oh _anointed_ one." He mocked him with a reluctant bow, which he rebuffed with a swash of his black garment. "Not to be the boy's keeper. Perhaps the next time he loses something you should return it _yourself_."

He eyed his arms again, this time making _certain_ Aimé knew that he knew.

"It would appear your services are no longer required, Daroga. You may go."

The masked man nearly disappeared into the shadows, until he called out, " _Aimé_ , don't you think it's time to stop pretending to be something you're not?"

The Persian went as far as gripping a handful of that black cloak before it slipped out of his fingers. The gold eyes returned, but they'd gone sickly yellow with his narrowed pupils.

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," he moaned. All signs forced the foreign gentleman back into the street, lest he find himself without a head. "And it's Erik, Daroga. _Erik_."

The voice had changed again, whip-lashing sound that it was. Like a different person taking over his friend's throat. Yet again, he was altering his identity and leaving the stalwart Persian in the dust. _Was_ he still his friend? Was he an enemy once more, over fabricated issues and arguments embellished by his uncertainty? He wanted to ask him _why_ and _what for_?

His heart panged.

Daroga sighed with a remorseful shrug. "Of course," he acquiesced. "Of course _Erik_. My mistake."

The eyes narrowed into slits before they disappeared behind his _chapeau._ And then the whole body vanished, as though absorbed by the membrane of the _Palais Garnier_.

The Persian shook his head distastefully as he clasped his hands behind his back. As he started the walk home to his flat on _la Rue de Rivoli_ , he looked up at the sun giving way to the waning moon behind the dome of the opera, and felt more deeply assured than ever in his assessment.

"A birdcage. A dingy, gaudy birdcage."

He rolled his eyes and assimilated into the five o'clock crowd busying the Parisian streets.

* * *

 _*"H-hallå! Sluta! Släpp mig!" means "H-hey! Stop! Let me go!" in Swedish_  
 _**Ahriman means evil spirit or devil in Persian. The words the Persian says to get Christophe's attention are blocked out because I honestly couldn't transliterate the Persian words google translate gave me when I typed them in without fearing they'd be inaccurate, and I didn't want to do that. He's supposed to be saying "You shouldn't be here." Very foreboding, non?_

 _Au claire de la lune is an old French folk song that Debussy references in with his own Claire de lune piece, but they are not the same song. The original has a very simple melody that repeats over every verse. It's very cute._

 _Please review! If you've favorited the fic and haven't reviewed, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts!_

 _Rose_


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